CHAPTER IX

       Dangerous Encounter

       Table of Contents

      That day Winchester was transplanting moss. It was the notorious Martian migratory moss, a creeping, leafy slime that ceaselessly seeks the sun. Winchester had learned its trait the first time he had handled it, and now he turned it to account.

      He had swung his boatswain's chair from a hook high up the crater cliff. To an adjacent hook he had rigged a pulley, by which he hauled the reeking stuff up in a basket from the flatcar two hundred feet below. It was easy to plant acres of the stuff that way. For the spot Winchester chose was just within the shadow made by the crater's brink. Since from the Moon the Sun moves slowly, he rarely had to change his position.

      He plastered half a basket of the slippery plant against the flat granite of the cliff, then waited while it crawled away toward the nearby area. Then he picked up his trowel and dipped it into the basket again. When the basket was empty, he sent it down to the car below.

      Presently Winchester felt the tug that told him the basket was full again. By the time the basketful had been spread upon the cliff, the situation behind him had changed. A train had come up and was stopped a short distance away. It consisted of a locomotive and single car, but such a locomotive and car as Winchester could never have imagined.

      Both were plated with gold and studded with insets of what must have been massed jewels; for no single stones could have been so large.

      Gaily liveried flunkies were unloading from the front compartment what appeared to be wheeled chairs. In a moment Winchester understood that was exactly what they were — super-rickshas, quite as rich and elegant in their way as the train was in its. As soon as the rickshas were ready and ranged beside the coach, the princely party stepped out.

      Winchester recognized Prince Lohan by his height and yellow robe. He judged the squat, swarthy man beside him in rich red to be the Martian envoy. Their conveyances rolled off first, leaving the women of the party to follow as they chose.

      Winchester turned back to his work. It was not until he had emptied another basketload of moss that he looked again. The party had gone far out into the desert and was circling to the north. Winchester started when he observed a single parked ricksha standing in the brush not a great distance away, between him and the private train.

      A daintily dressed woman strolled near it, idly looking over the plants. Evidently she had not cared for the longer trip out into the desert, and had quit the party early. But the thing that alarmed Winchester was that she was but a few hundred yards away from a thick growth of the deadly phygrix!

      Without stopping to think of the possible consequences, Winchester slipped out of the boatswain's chair and sprang onto the moss-basket. He gave a quick series of jerks on the hauling-down line. It mattered not to him that it was considered sacrilege and punishable by death for an ordinary slave, let alone a convict, to approach directly any member of the royal household, whatever the emergency.

      He hit the ground and snatched up a coil of light rope meant for hoisting service. Then he dashed off through the brush in the direction he had last seen the woman. When he broke cover on the opposite side, he saw at once he was too late. The phygrices had gone to work. Already the many-handed clusters of green were scooping up stones and gravel and flinging them at the woman.

      She stood still amidst a dozen clumps, clasping her hands and screaming. There was one giant cactus near her, but it offered no shelter against the pelting missiles and was far too spiny to be climbed, even had she the strength and agility. A stone struck her behind the ear, and with a little moan she sank to the ground.

      Her two guards and the ricksha pullers, who had been dawdling in the vicinity of the conveyance, started forward, shouting at the tops of their voices. The guards drew their flamers, but hardly had the hot rays spouted forth than both fell, struck fairly in the face with pitched rocks.

      The ricksha slaves, seeing how hopeless it was, turned to run, but they were too late. The barrage of gravel brought them down, too. In the same instant, the ominous retriever tentacles began to rise from the heart of the plants and reach out for their newest victims.

      Winchester took it all in at a glance. Without a moment's hesitation he dropped the rope he was carrying and dashed back into the brush. He remembered in a flash that he had seen the refrigerator men's repair car parked on a short siding. It was an open car, and therefore might contain the one thing he needed.

      He found it, and sprang aboard, heedless of the expostulations of the "freemen" who had been left in charge. Yes, there were the heavy helmets and the quilted coats men wear when traversing the open spaces of the Moon. He grabbed up a set and sprinted back to where the girl had been, not neglecting to pick up a small hand-ax as he went.

      By the time he returned, the sensory plumes by which the pitcher-plants were informed had done their work. The barrage of stones had subsided, except for a few nervous leaves, which kept on tossing missiles at random as if unable to stop. One guard was being dragged into the very heart of a plant, while feelers from two neighboring clumps were engaging in a tug of war over the body of the other.

      A ricksha man had disappeared entirely. The other was almost invisible in his wrappings of coiled antennae. In another minute he would be gone as well.

      But the girl! So far she had been untouched, except for the missiles. Several tentacles were creeping toward her, casting about in their blind way, but the nearest had more than a yard to go before it found her. Winchester slapped on his helmet and donned the coat. He hooked the ax to his belt, picked up his rope again, and boldly stepped out.

      As he expected, he had not gone more than a dozen paces when the sensitive fronds of the killer plants gave their warning. Winchester ducked his head to take the first volley of stones that instantly followed. The rocks clinked against his head-covering or thudded against his body, but although the blows were felt, they were sufficiently muffled not to be fatal.

      Winchester ran steadily, taking care to give the girl's prone form a wide berth, so as to draw the fire well away from her. He paused only long enough to hack at two of the feelers that spread across his path. That rid the girl of half her attackers. He might yet have time to deal with the pair coming up from the other side.

      He stopped beside the cactus tree. By then he had slipped a knot in the end of his rope and had a noose flowing. He moved away just far enough for a free swing and swung his lariat. It was an art he had almost forgotten, but what is learned in childhood has remarkable staying powers. He let fly the noose and was overjoyed to see it settle squarely on the nearest phygrix.

      Winchester drew it tight with a sudden jerk of his arm and a heave of his body. Then he secured the line fast to the trunk of the cactus and cut it free from the remainder of the coil. One set of pitching arms was drawn tight and immobile. Swiftly he fashioned another noose. After a couple of tries, he had another phygrix lassoed and lashed down.

      He attacked a third and a fourth. And then he saw that his line was exhausted. The stray piece he held in his hand was a scant ten feet long.

      But he had silenced four of the enemies. There were but two others in range of