Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930

"Spying, eh?" said Nat bitterly. "My dear man, isn't that my business?" "Well, read this, then," said Nat, handing her the message. "You're likely to repent this crazy trick of yours before we get much farther." And he pointed to the cosmic-ray skiagraph of the Moon on the curved glass dome overhead. They were approaching the satellite rapidly. It filled the whole dome, the craters great black hollows, the mountains standing out clearly. Beneath the dome were the radium apparatus that emitted the rays by which the satellite was photographed cinematographically, and the gyroscope steering apparatus by which the ship's course was directed. Suddenly a buzzer sounded a warning. Nat sprang to the tube. "Gravitational interference X40, gyroscopic aberrancy one minute 29," he called. "Discharge static electricity from hull. Mr. Benson, stand by." "What does that mean?" asked Madge. "It means I shall be obliged if you'll abstain from speaking to the man at the controls," snapped Nat. "And what's that?" cried Madge in a shriller voice, pointing upward. Across the patterned surface of the Moon, shown on the skiagraph, a black, cigar-shaped form was passing. It looked like one of the old-fashioned dirigibles, and the speed with which it moved was evident from the fact that it was perceptibly traversing the Moon's surface. Perhaps it was travelling at the rate of fifty thousand miles an hour. Brent, the chief officer, burst up the companion. His face was livid. "Black ship approaching us from the Moon, Sir," he stammered. "Benson's training his guns, but it must be twenty thousands miles away."