CHAPTER V LUNAR RENDEZVOUS

Long crater shadows were crawling across the dead seas of Luna. In the very edge of those long shadows which moved so slowly, tiny phosphorescent wrigglers, the only form of life on the satellite, kept pace with the strange twilight of this slow dusk.

A cold, frigid world was the moon, passing into the dusk of existence, even as the month-old day was passing from the dead seas.

From out of space something moved, a silver dart that came twisting out of the reflected sunlight and levelled out in a long gravitational glide over the dead Sea of Serenity.

At last it swooped down, landed on a high ledge that was almost obscured by jetty walls that went ever higher and higher, to end brokenly where the last lingering rays of moonset made crowns of foamy refraction.

A man in a fat, grubby spacesuit of metallin came from a porte, gazed around, and having sighted a dim glow of light, went warily toward where the black wall was indented with a deep grotto. He stepped on the threshold, saw an atomic lantern glowing in the hand of a waiting figure, also clad in spacetogs.

"Rufus!" called the newcomer excitedly. "That you, Rufus?"

"Yes, Dr. Haliburton," returned Rufus Thallin. "Where's Marshall? Wouldn't he come?"

"Oh, yes," replied Dr. Haliburton, who was having the dickens of a time keeping his gold-rimmed spectacles on inside of his helmet. "He came all right. But he wanted me to make certain you were here."

"Go bring him," said Rufus Thallin. "I trust you, Dr. Haliburton, but I'm not so certain about Keith Randolph Marshall. Did he come prepared to complete the—bargain?"

The space-clad man turned. He saw the academic features of the physician but dimly.

"He came with a property deed to every space-ship he has," said Dr. Haliburton. "I think you'll find that Marshall is a man who always keeps his word, no matter how the bargain is made."

Rufus Thallin made no answer but stood holding the atomic lantern until two space-clad figures walked from the space-flyer and came toward him. The faceplate of the larger helmet was turned into the lantern's glow and he made out the massive, aquiline countenance of Keith Randolph Marshall, glaring at him.

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