It came to him that he was leaving the only group where he'd ever earned a real place for himself by his own merits. He'd spent his whole life looking for honest acceptance, it seemed, and now he was giving it up. That mattered to him, but it couldn't stop him.
Chapter 15 Crack-up
the first few minutes presented the only danger to Fred's chance to get away. A man could outrun the tractor, even at its top speed, for a mile or two in this light gravity. It would have been possible to stop him, but no one seemed to think of that. He drove on steadily at maximum speed until the little camp was out of sight behind him.
Things would be more difficult for them without this tractor, but the two remaining would still permit them to finish their work and return to Base. At least he wasn't endangering them by running off.
He slowed down a little after the first miles, trying to find the best speed possible without wasting fuel. The tractor would have to operate at a higher average speed than had been intended by its makers. He could only hope that the repairs would stand up under the steady racing.
The sun was in the west, a few days before setting, and the shadows were lengthening. The dust was charged with static, dancing off the surface and making it hard to see. He was taking risks with every mile he covered; that was another thing that couldn't be helped. If he
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slowed down to a sensible pace, it would be much too late by the time he located the ship.
There was no chance to spot the pits and irregularities in the surface while the dust was suspended by the static charge. A wide and deep fissure would show, but none of the expected irregularities. He drove on, taking his chances.
Several times he felt the tractor sinking. It would lose speed as the dust spun under the treads, but the silicone rubber never completely lost traction. All he could hope was that the pit he was entering did not have sharp sides and plow ahead as steadily as possible. In that, he seemed to be lucky. The tractor sank below the top of the roof in several of the pits, but eventually it emerged and went forward again. In one pit he found a rise on the other side that was too steep for the machine. He was able to turn and ascend it at an angle.
He locked the controls in place and hunted up water and food concentrates once, keeping his eye on the trail ahead as much as possible. Eventually he would have to take breaks to rest himself, but he wanted to avoid any stops while he was reasonably fresh.
He'd begun to realize that it might have been better to get another man to go with him. Boland would probably have been willing; one could have managed to sleep while the other drove. Then he rejected the idea. He had been right, after all. The tractor carried a certain amount of oxygen and other equipment, and one man would use less than two; this would leave more for the use of Wickman and Ramachundra if they needed it.
He felt the tractor jounce while he was eating. Its treads spun and then seemed to lock. The tractor tilted backward. Fred fed it the last bit of power. Slowly, the machine inched ahead, caught, and went lurching forward again.
He'd hit a faulty section of crust. It was another danger, since much of the Moon had hollows and pits on or just under the crust. There was no point in reducing speed, since he had a better chance of getting past while the tractor was moving fast enough to cover the break before it could fall in.
The strain and steady concentration began to tell on fiim sooner than he had expected. Driving looked easy enough, but it was one of the toughest jobs he had ever mastered. He had to fight against himself as well as the machine; there was a constant temptation to let his attention wander or to gaze blindly at the distance; such habits could be fatal.
He gave up and came to a stop, to eat another hasty meal of concentrates. There was no hope of avoiding sleep, he realized. He glanced at his watch and sat giving himself orders to wake up in four hours, trying to drive the message so deep that he'd remember, even in his sleep. Sometimes he had that trick of waking himself on schedule, but he didn't trust himself too far.
It seemed to work, however. He woke about fifteen minutes before he had ordered himself to, according to his watch; he was still too tired to feel he'd slept long enough. Probably the trick of timing worked better under pressure.
The shadows grew larger as the sun dropped further to the west. The terminator was steadily moving westward toward him, as he moved somewhat eastward to meet it. With any luck, he'd be at his destination sometime before darkness fell abruptly. To make up for the difficulty in seeing the terrain ahead against the harsh shadows, he began to steer toward ground above the level of the worst dust. The ground was rougher, and strewn with outcroppings of rock, yet less troublesome than the shadows made it seem.
He was making good time, he realized. Before he stopped for sleep again because of his inability to concentrate on driving, he was on the first rising slope that led to the mountains he had to cross. He stopped to eat and study them, comparing them with what little detail showed on the map. There were three places where they seemed to be broken, where there might be a pass. This was actually an extension of the range through which the expedition had first forced its way; it was a major chain of mountains that swept in a great curve, and going around it seemed impossible.
He put off his decision until after he had slept another four hours and could study the problem with a clearer mind. Then he decided that there was no obvious choice. He headed toward the nearest crack in the great, rugged peaks. Some of the mountains made any on Earth seem like pigmy models, but there were places where ancient breaks seemed to separate the towering peaks. The one he was approaching looked good from the little that showed on the map.
Traveling was easy at first. He pushed on for several miles at a fair speed. The sunlight faded quickly as the peaks threw their shadows over the gorges and breaks; even by headlight the going was not too bad. Then there was a section where he had to hunt his way slowly. He was beginning to congratulate himself on his choice when the trail came to a sudden end against a hopelessly unscalable rock wall.
There was only one thing to do. He backed to a place where there was a chance to climb up for a survey, took the powerful portable searchlight, and went out in his suit. He was again aware of the need of another man. One slip could mean the end of his rescue attempt—and of himself. He climbed carefully, searching for each step and testing each foothold. Halfway up the sloping wall of rock, he gave up. Even from that height, he could see by the beam of his light that this was a dead end, with no possible path ahead.
Back in the tractor, he managed to turn and begin the return trip. He studied every inch, swinging the headlight about, but there seemed to be no alternative. Finally he came through the cleft and was on the outer slope again.
The next possibility lay fifteen miles away; he had wasted almost four hours on the first attempt. There was no use worrying about that. All he could do was try again —keep trying until he found some way through the mountains. He was forced to realize that there might be no passage—these were not Earth mountains, where rivers and millions of years of weathering had worn regular passes; on the Moon, any pass must be considered a lucky accident, until men could come here in sufficient numbers to blast trails from solid rock.
The next entrance to the forbidding barrier was disappointing at first. He hesitated, wondering whether it might not be better to go on to the third possibility. Then he shrugged, and pointed the machine forward. There was a hint of lighter shadow far ahead that might prove to be a cleft through which he could make his way.
The first mile was almost impossible. The tractor labored up and down, twisting its way along small ledges and through narrow gaps. Once he had to get out and climb over the tractor to get to a boulder blocking his passage. He struggled and fought against it with a heavy bar of metal, barely able to budge it. There was blasting powder in the tractor, but he dared not use it for fear of starting a rock slide. When the stone finally rolled aside, he was shaking with exhaustion.
Then the gap he was followi
ng opened a little, where he had seen the faint reflection of light from the upper peaks. It continued to grow wider for some time, and he breathed more easily. The widening indicated that it might be the end of some great cleavage which pierced through the mountains. Boulders and broken rock had fallen from above, cracked away by the heating and cooling of day and night; the rock had partly filled the great chasm, making a passable floor on which the tractor slowly crawled and wriggled its way.
It was treacherous, though. He could never be sure that some great slab of stone was not so precariously balanced that his passage would send it hurtling away under him. He had to hold down his speed, even when the way seemed clear. More time was spent testing his way than traveling. The places where he had to use maximum power to climb some obstacle were too frequent. It meant using more peroxide fuel than he liked, but there was no help for it.
At the top of one long rise, he saw a tiny slit beyond which there seemed to be open ground. He couldn't be sure, but it gave a lift to his sagging spirits. He'd been going on nerve for the last few hours. If he could see the plains beyond, it meant the mountains were narrower here than the map indicated.
A half hour later, he was sure of it. He had reached the top of the climb through the gorge, and was moving down a fairly straight break in the great walls. Ahead definitely lay the lighted horizon of the plains. The going was easier, too. He relaxed for a few minutes.
He should have known better than to believe it was all over. As he came around a slight curve onto another stretch of descending trail, his headlights spotted a break in the path running from wall to wall of the gorge. It was a small fissure, as such things went, but wider than the length of the tractor, and impossible to maneuver, as far as he could see.
He got out wearily, picking his way cautiously across the rock and broken slabs under him, and drew near the edge. He tested it with his bar, trying to find whether the edge was sound, before going closer.
The sides of the break seemed solid and strong; he gained confidence as he stared down. It looked as if a quake had dropped one edge of the trail a couple of feet below the other, leaving him on the higher edge. He might even be able to reach the bottom. For that matter, he could leap across easily enough with the lunar gravity, although it would do no good to try going on without the tractor. He couldn't backtrack and try another pass. His fuel was holding up fairly well, but it would never last for the return through the mountains and still another attempt.
The lower section of the trail across the split was smooth enough, he saw. Once the tractor was across, there would be no further trouble from that.
The only solution was to jump the tractor across it.
He estimated it. At maximum speed, the machine would be traveling forward fifteen feet every second. It would fall less than three feet the first second, and drop steadily faster after that. The downward slope of the trail would cancel out some of the difference in height between the two edges. He lacked enough speed to make it.
He considered the jump again; it was so close that the idea kept coming back, while his mind insisted there was no other way. The tractor might not stand the landing, yet he was fairly sure the shock would not be too great; the treads would soak up most of it. All he needed was a slightly upward lift before leaving the higher edge.
Then he nodded to himself. There were enough rocks and fragments he could move. The only hope was to build a mound of them, like the upsweep at the edge of a ski jump, and hope they would stand the momentary impact of the tractor.
He fell to, dragging rocks into place and trying to wedge them firmly with smaller pieces. The largest had to go at the edge—these required the firmest bracing. There was a long, carefully graded slope of smaller rubble to be built behind it. He was sweating and panting in his suit, and his oxygen was running low before he finished. He put the last touches on it and climbed back into the tractor. He was hungry and thirsty. He couldn't stop to eat; if he stopped now, he might lose his nerve.
Slowly he backed the machine up the slope as far as he thought necessary. He gunned the motor, letting the clutches slip. There was no chance to stop and try this again. He had to hit the edge at full speed and keep going-
Abruptly he let the clutches engage fully. The tractor bucked and lurched forward, picking up speed, while he fought to hold it in a straight path over the rubble. It seemed to thunder down the last few feet and out onto the ramp he had built. Stones ground and pitched under the treads. He had no time for worry about that.
The front of the treads touched the edge. The tractor seemed to settle, but the lift at the end of the ramp held. There was a final lurch, then a feeling of total ease as the machine left the path completely and was over the open chasm, while the treads spun without resistance.
The shock of landing made his ankles ache, and the tractor groaned. The motor bucked, and the treads jerked to a stop that must have rippped half the clutch lining away. The rear of the machine sagged, still over the edge of the split.
Then momentum and the savage biting of the treads carried the machine forward. He'd made it.
He let the motor die and sagged over the controls, breathing heavily until he got enough control of himself to grope for food and water. He wasn't hungry now, but he forced himself to eat and relax before picking up the trail downward and out of the mountains.
The rest of the way was easy. Before he realized it, he was on the flatter plains, still in the shadow of the mountains. The hungry, gigantic teeth of the mountains yawned emptily behind him.
He forced himself to sleep here, briefly and for the final time. By the time he would need sleep again, he would either have found the ship or have failed. In spite of all the setbacks, he was making as good time as he'd hoped. He'd reach the ship—if it was there—on the thirty-sixth day "after Base," just three days from the time he'd left the expedition camp.
It was harder to wake this time; he'd been getting too little sleep, and the fatigue was mounting. Still, the prospect of reaching his goal helped to lift the fog from his mind.
He crossed the plains, back into the area of full light. The sun was two days from setting. It was off to his side and slightly behind him, and mercifully offered no glare. He came to a small crater, driving the tractor up the crater wall, down into the depression, and across it to the far wall. It was a normal crater, probably produced by a meteorite of only a few thousand tons, without even a single smaller crater inside the main, ancient one. Earth had once had such craters; time and weather had filled in most of them.
Abruptly he stopped the tractor, but it was too late. He climbed out, examining the ground under the front treads. He had glimpsed what looked like another cluster of tiny plants, but the treads had demolished all life, if there had been any. He could see one tiny fragment; it shattered and became dust as he watched.
He couldn't have collected specimens. He had no idea of how to save them; certainly the air inside the tractor would ruin them. There was no time to stop and search for more.
He kept his eyes carefully directed to the ground after that, but there were no more signs of life.
Hours later, he came to the area he had selected on the map as the site of the crash. It was a bowl-like crater, with one wall on the far side blending into a rocky escarpment. He gunned the motor, climbing the slope up to the crater, his eyes aching to look for signs of the ship.
It was there, he saw as he reached the top. Or the wreck of it was there, out toward the center of the small crater. Long before he reached it, he could see that the landing had been a brutal one. The whole tail section was crumpled into accordion folds where it had sagged in on itself. It had tilted, too, and lay on its side.
As he drew up to it, he could see that the front of the control cabin had been ripped out by the force of the crack-up. The entire ship must be open to the vacuum of the Moon.
Chapter 16 False Hopes
at first glance, the ship looked as if no human body could have stood the shock of the la
nding. As Fred circled it slowly, he could see that the shock seats were empty—that meant someone had to have been alive to release the straps. He cut around the nose of the ship into the area of dark shadow behind it. Just as he flicked on his headlight, a figure sprang up before him.
Fred jerked the tractor to a halt and went out through the lock as quickly as possible. In the light, he could see Dr. Ramachundra, clad in a spacesuit three sizes too large. The flopping figure looked ludicrous, but the voice over the radio was as gay as Fred remembered.
"Ah, yes. Mr. Halpern, how nice of you to come. I was telling poor Major Wickman only a little while ago . . ."
"Where is he? How is he?" Fred cried.
Then the answer came with a chuckle that sounded weak but was all too familiar. "Well, well, the Moon-boy. Our hero rides again. Did you bring the reporters with you?"
Fred saw the pilot. He lay in a depression partly filled with dust so that it almost covered his suit. With the sun shining into the unprotected cabin, the ship must have
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become too hot, driving them out in the open and into the shadow. Out of the sun, the ground cooled far too quickly. The little dust pit was the logical solution, since the dust made an excellent insulator.
Ramachundra was fussing around excitedly, seemingly not bothered by the clumsy suit. "Major Wick-man would not relax. Oh, no. Not as I showed him. He does not trust yoga. Now, behold. Four broken ribs and a broken arm, I believe. The medical kit was lost in the wreck, so I have been hopeless to help. It is good you are here. Indeed, it is."
Fred bent over, but Wickman motioned him away. "I can carry myself. We're all heroes here, you know."
He managed to shake himself out of the dust and get to his feet. Fred shrugged and let the man stalk stubbornly through the air lock. When they were all inside the tractor, he dragged out the medical kit while Ramachundra helped the pilot out of his suit. Fortunately, the first aid course at the Acadeny was a stiff one. Fred found a box of pain remedy and gave three pills to Wickman, along with a standard precautionary injection of antibiotics. Then he began stalling for time until the pills could take effect.
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