by Hal Clement
“I think I can get away from here shortly,” he said. “Maybe in half an hour. Meanwhile, find out who was on duty at North-Down when Rick got there, and see if the kid said anything about where he was going when he learned he was early. Then call me back.”
“Orm is checking with the lock watch right now,” Marie answered. “I should have word for you in a few minutes. Do you want me to call Mrs. Suspee again if I learn anything?”
Talles thought for only a moment.
“Call her if you’re sure he’s inside, not otherwise.”
“I understand.” Marie broke connection and turned to the others. “Is Orm back?”
“Here he comes,” Aichi said.
“Orm, who was on when Rick got here?”
“Don’t know yet,” Orm replied breathlessly. “Del Petvar is on duty now. He says he was here twelve hours ago, went off just after eight, and Rick hadn’t shown up by that time. Del was relieved by Pierre Montaux, but we can’t get hold of him. He went off duty four hours ago and still isn’t home. At least, he doesn’t answer the visiphone.”
“He could be home and too sound asleep to have heard the call,” pointed out someone in the crowd.
“That’s possible,” agreed Aichi. “Who knows where he lives? Is it far from here?”
None of the group knew either answer but Petvar, whom they consulted, was able to supply the information. Montaux’s unit was about ten minutes’ walk away. Without further discussion Marie rushed off.
Aichi cast a worried look after her and then another at the nearest clock. This Earth kid was holding things up badly. They should be well on the way out to Pic-G by now if the work was to be accomplished.
But he waited. Confirmation of Rick’s whereabouts was essential. There was just that chance, a slim one but still a chance, that the fellow was actually outside. If so, the problems would be such that everything else would just have to sit in vacuum for a while.
Then it occurred to him that the group might as well suit up in any case. They would be going out soon if Rick Suspee were found inside—and certainly if he were reported outside.
MARIE was back before they had finished their tightness checks. Orm Hoffman, who had not yet donned his helmet, blurted, “Montaux was home?”
She nodded grimly.
“He got there just as I did. He’s been at a show. He told me Rick suited up around nine, thinking he was late instead of early. Montaux let him go outside to chase after us. Rick didn’t return during Montaux’s shift and we know Petvar hasn’t seen him. So Rick must still be outside.”
“Wow!”
Marie continued, “I called Jim Talles from Montaux’s place. The Chief is on his way. To save time he’s taking a crawler from NEM instead of walking. His orders are that we’re to get outside as quickly as we can. Aichi, you’re in charge until he gets here. We’re to send two of us along the trail to the north. As soon as they’re outside the trampled area, they’re to check for prints Rick may have left.”
All had taken off their helmets to listen. Aichi nodded.
“When the Chief arrives, you’re to take the crawler and two other people and follow the same route. Pick up the first two when you get to them, and set all four to searching along the narrow part of the valley between here and Pic-G. Chief Jim says Rick knows the maps well, and the most likely thing is that he headed north in an effort to catch up with us. You can go all the way to your site at GA. After you get there do your own work until Jim calls either for you or the crawler. If none of you finds Rick along the road or at your site, we’ll have to set up a comprehensive search plan.” Marie shook her head. She was near tears. “That fool Rick! How could he be so idiotic?”
“Simple. He’s an Earth guy,” said Aichi. “All right. Everyone into the lock, then, except you, Norm. You help Marie with her suit check, and the two of you follow outside as soon as possible.”
Helmets were donned and checked. Aichi and his group let themselves into the airlock. Marie quickly stuffed her pretty self into her suit. She and Norman Delveccio were outside well within badge-qualifying time but Aichi Yen had already dispatched the first pair of searchers. They were visible half a mile away, going fast, making for the spur of hills coming in from the right. They were still within the heavily trampled area around the lock where tracking was impossible.
“If he’s been gone more than eleven hours,” Marie pointed out over her communicator, “he should be mostof the way to Pic G. It’s hard to see how he could have gotten lost if he’s really familiar with the maps. I’ll bet you find him out at your setup.”
Yen made the left-hand gesture equivalent to a negative headshake—faces were hard to see through helmets, especially with sun filters in place. “Judging by Jim’s instructions, he thinks the same. But I wouldn’t bet on it,” his voice came back. “Up to the valley, and even through it, I wouldn’t worry. It’s a worn trail. Once out on G, though, tracks go every which way. Every set of footprints made since McDee found the first lode in those hills is still there. If that’s not enough to mix up Rick there are crawler tracks going in all directions. He might be able to hit GA, I suppose, since it’s about three miles across, but then what? There’s lots of stuff and tracks in that bowl besides mine. And has anyone told him about bubbles?”
“They were mentioned the other night at Chief Jim’s place,” replied Marie. “I don’t know whether enough was said to give Rick much of a picture, though.”
“Well, I just hope he has been going slowly. That would give us a chance to catch him before he’s through the valley. Hey . . . here comes a crawler down from NEM. Must be Jim. Who wants to ride with me? You, Marie?”
The girl made the negative gesture.
“I’ll stay here until we hear whether Rick has reached your site. If he hasn’t, we’ll have to make a wider sweep. I think maybe I can help more with that.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say. I just feel I could. I’m still betting he’s out near GA, at or near your machine. But I want to be ready in case he isn’t.”
“All right. Digger and Jem, you come with me in the crawler. We’ll pick up Anna and Kort on the way. The rest of you stand by for whatever the Chief is planning.”
A moment later the vehicle from the upper lock drew up beside them. Jim Talles’ spacesuited figure emerged. Digger and Jem climbed into the vehicle’s cab, leaving its trailer empty for the time being. Aichi joined them after reporting the situation to Talles. In a few seconds the vehicle was trundling out across Taruntius X. Talles and the others looked after it but only for a moment.
“So much for that,” he said. “Now—I suppose you all agree that Rick probably struck out north toward Pic G. Are there any guesses about what else he might have done? Or what he might be doing now?”
Silence, while the young people looked thoughtfully at each other and the Lunar landscape. It was Marie who finally spoke.
“Surely that would depend on when he finally realized he had been early instead of late,” she said slowly. “He must have gone quite a way before the truth struck him, or he’d have been back long ago. He got started less than an hour after he thought we’d gone, so he couldn’t have figured us to be very far ahead. He must have expected to catch up fairly soon, if he hurried—”
“But we don’t know how fast he expects us to travel,” objected one of the others. “He was never outside before, and he’ll find he can’t go as fast himself as he probably expected to. So he may have decided pretty quickly that he’d be a long time catching up. Maybe he still thinks he started out late, not early.”
“That’s a point, Don,” Talles said. “We’re going to have trouble figuring just what he would do and think. He was telling me a couple of nights ago about how different things were at the school he visited—he meant in what people took for granted. We’re stuck the same way. We don’t know what will seem like common sense to him. We do know—or at least, I know; some of you may not be so sure right now—that he’s nobody
’s fool in spite of this trick he’s just pulled. So if Aichi doesn’t find him somewhere along the road to the instrument site, we’ll have to try to guess what a reasonable smart person with a completely different background from ours would consider a sensible course.”
“You should have a pretty good idea. You grew up on Earth,” remarked Peter Willett.
“So I did. I haven’t been there for twenty-two years, though. And the fact that I’m still alive here is pretty good evidence of how deep I’ve buried my Earth habits. Still, I’ll do my best. Just don’t you throttle your imaginations because you think I’m the only one with a chance to solve the problem.”
“Don’t worry,” said Marie. “We’ll figure him out.” Jim Talles looked at her. “Maybe,” he answered.
TIRTY miles, measured along a low orbit, from North-Down, Rick Suspee went through a rather similar review of the situation, though this probably happened some hours later. He had not yet caught on to his twelve-hour error. Nevertheless it was evident to him that something was seriously wrong.
He had walked for what he guessed was the right distance across the relatively flat surface of Taruntius X. He had reached the valley he had marked from the lock—fortunately, he had not lost track of it during the walk. He had followed it slightly upward and then down again to another open, fairly level area. The way was obviously a well-traveled one, as he had expected. Indeed it was packed so firmly that it would no longer take footprints or even tread marks, though often enough one or the other led off to right or left. It all fitted the mental picture Rick had gained from his uncle’s maps and the conversations he had heard and joined, and he had no doubt that he was now on the southern edge of Picard G’s floor.
However, he had seen nothing of the hikers or any other living person. He had heard not a whisper over his helmet communicator. He knew that radio on the Moon was a line-of-sight proposition, and that the relay units on the hilltops around Wilsonburg were turned on only by special arrangement. If he had never got close enough to the hikers to have no chunks of Moonscape in the way, it was perfectly reasonable for him to have heard nothing. But he could not understand why he had failed to get that close.
True, they might have been into the valley before he had emerged onto Taruntius X. Yet if so they had traveled much faster than he had supposed possible.
Rick himself had found that he could not walk much faster than on Earth. With far less fatigue, yes. Here he weighed less than twenty-five pounds. But faster, no. He did not have the coordination necessary to take the sort of steps that would keep both feet off the ground at once for any distance. When he tried it, landing on either foot was a matter of luck. Leaving the ground with an angular momentum close enough to zero for the result to resemble walking was still beyond his skill. Failing to land on at least one foot could be dangerous; helmets were strong but had their limits, and Moon rocksare no softer than those of Earth. It would be a long time before he could acquire the “lunar lope”—that swift, leaping walk at which Moon-dwellers were so adept.
Yet even if the others had the skill he lacked and could “step” a distance limited only by their muscular strength rather than their coordination, it was hard to see how a lead of one hour or less could possibly have put them ten miles ahead.
It then occurred to him that they might have stuck to the hills around the east side of Taruntius X, rather than cutting straight across its floor. Some of the badge tests that the hikers were going to take during the trip could easily have required this.
If they had chosen the easterly course, that might account for the radio silence. They had been in a valley cutting them off from him. It also implied that he was ahead of them by now, since his path had been direct rather than circuitous. With this in mind, he settled himself down to wait. His position was a short distance from what he took to be the northeast end of the valley.
He had intended to wait for two hours at most. But the sleep that had been eluding him so effectively for the last few “nights” caught up with Rick. He never knew how long he slept, since his watch was inside the spacesuit where he could not reach it and his oxygen-cartridge gauge meant little in terms of time without knowledge of his personal consumption rate.
Well, he consoled himself, he had been out in the open where the others would have seen him if they had caught up. Evidently the around-the-hills hypothesis was wrong. They had been ahead of him all the time. They must certainly have reached Aichi’s place in Picard GA by now.
GA, he knew, was about three miles across. It should be no more than three or four miles away. Presumably the whole crowd was below its rim, since he was still hearing no response to his radio calls.
Unfortunately, no such feature was visible, or at least recognizable, on the slightly rolling plain before him. This might mean little; distances were hard to judge in the unfamiliar lighting. If the rim of GA were high, it might be difficult to pick it out from the background hills—hills whose feet were below the near horizon but whose upper details stood out as clearly as the valley walls a scant mile behind him. If the rim were low or nonexistent, finding it from a distance would be even harder.
Just the same, his map memory told him that if he headed northeast from his present position for three or four miles he should reach the depression. And it was probably too large to miss.
He looked around carefully, matching the shapes of the surrounding hills with his memory, and incidentally modifying the latter more than he realized. In case he would have to retreat, he made particularly sure that he could recognize the mouth of the valley leading back to Taruntius X and Wilsonburg. That was sensible although, as it turned out, superfluous.
He set out sturdily, but there was no easy way to tell when he had walked four miles. His pace was probably not its Earth length, which he knew well, but he could not guess whether it was longer because of the lower gravity or shorter because of this spacesuit. Expended effort—fatigue—of course meant nothing as a distance guide. Nor did the passage of time, since he could not reliably judge his speed.
Eventually so much time passed that he decided he must have started in the wrong direction. GA could not possibly lie this far from the valley mouth. Once more he stopped and looked around, less sure of himself than ever.
The gently rolling plain furnished a large supply of low elevations, any one possibly the rim of GA. Some, as he already knew, were indeed crater rims, but none had proven anywhere near large enough to be his target. There seemed nothing to do but check every elevation in sight—unless, he thought suddenly, it would he better to go back to the southern hills and get a higher viewpoint. A few hundred feet might be enough to let him spot the hole he wanted without difficulty.
It was a good idea. He would try it. First, though, he would check one rather noticeable rise to his left—roughly north, though without shade he could no longer see the stars to be sure of that. He made his way over to it and without much effort reached the top.
It was not a crater lip but a low dome, some forty feet high. It measured about a hundred and fifty yards from north to south, and half that in the other direction.
There had been no footprints on the southern side that Rick had climbed. But near the top he encountered a well-trampled area. To his surprise, a few yards ahead of him he saw a long, low, obviously artificial wall.
He approached the structure curiously. It certainly was not an emergency oxygen cache—he knew what they looked like and how they were marked. The wall was only about two feet high and five wide, though it extended over a hundred feet from the top of the dome down its western side. Apparently the wall was made of cemented pebbles and the dome roof of glassy material covered by Lunar soil.
Piercing soil and roof, near the high end, there was a long scar with a few footprints around it. At the other end, downhill, stood a piece of equipment he recognized instantly. There was no need to read the cast-metal sign that lay beside it. He knew the story.
Eighty years earlier, Ranger VIII—one o
f the first hard-landing Lunar investigating robots—had plowed into the southern part of Mare Tranquillitatis at terminal-plus velocity. One of those freakish distributions of kinetic energy that sometimes occur in explosions and tornadoes had hurled an almost undamaged lens element—barrel and glassware—five hundred miles at nearly orbital speed. The fragment had expended most of its energy in cutting the groove on this hilltop, bounced once, and come to rest a little farther downhill. The wall surrounded track and relic, protecting them from the only feature of the environment likely to prevent their lasting another million years—human beings.
Rick was impressed not by the recalled story or even by the sight of a piece of history. What struck home was that the Ranger relic, he knew, was not in Picard G. Somehow, in spite of his care and what he thought was a reliable memory, he had managed to come a dozen miles or more too far west.
For a moment he considered beating a retreat to town. But the notion never got a firm hold.
After all, Picard G lay only a few miles to the east—much closer than Wilsonburg. The hills in the way did not look difficult, and nothing he remembered from the maps suggested that they should be. He would find the Footprints gang, and safety, much more quickly if he cut straight across to his original objective. Furthermore, he had spent much time memorizing the locations of oxygen caches in G against the need for them ever arising. He was safe for a good many hours yet according to his cartridge gauge, but it would be nice to be close to a recharge should he require one.
Without further thought he headed eastward toward the low hills.
III
JIM TALLES had spent the time driving down from Northeast-Middle in thinking, since the road was both safe and familiar. He had come up with a plan of sorts. After Aichi Yen’s team had left and the short consultation with the others was over, Talles wasted no time standing around.