Moon of Mutiny

by Lester Del Rey

  "How'd you manage the landing, anyhow? I saw the ship start spinning, then I lost it."

  "Time for bedtime stories while the hero plays doctor, eh?" Wickman asked. "All right. I can take it—anything you say."

  His account was similar to what Fred had guessed at the beginning. They'd been forced to rush against time before the ship could be ordered back to Earth, so the big rocket tube liners had been given only a hasty in* spection. The rockets had worked at the start, but when landing operations began, one tube had blown. The only hope of making a landing was by spinning the ship. During the final moments, Wickman had tried blinking his eyes, opening them briefly during each spin of the ship, in order to cut through the blur of motion and get a fixed view of the ground. The trick must have worked; he'd landed at much too high a speed, but otherwise perfectly. Then a second tube had blown, throwing the ship on its side.

  Fred whistled when the pilot finished the account. "Nobody else could have handled such a job. It was magnificent piloting," he said honestly.

  Wickman stared at him in surprise, then shrugged. "Thanks. Now, how come you're the one man on this whole world to reach us?"

  This time, when Fred finished his report, it was Wick-man's turn to whistle softly. "So your mental computer really works. I guess I don't have to say I'm glad it does. We were down to six hours of oxygen apiece when you turned up." He grinned suddenly. "Pretty hot course plotting, Mr. Halpern. Now you'd better get on with me. I'll be able to take it."

  He took it, though his face turned gray when the tape was wrapped around the injured chest and sweat popped out on his forehead while his arm was being set. Somehow, he kept the silent grin on his lips. That smile had probably been frozen there as he watched the last six hours of oxygen begin to trickle away without knowing whether anyone could reach them in time. While he was waiting for the plastic cast to set, he picked up the questioning again.

  "So, when do we set out to meet the main rescue party?"

  Fred considered. The trip would be a little rough on the pilot, but not too bad. At least there were no mountains to cross before the rendezvous with Dr. Sessions and Gantry in the officially chosen area. There was no point in delaying.

  "We'd better start as soon as I can refuel. I'll need time to draw peroxide from your motor pump tanks. I'm down to a few gallons of peroxide in the tractor. That shouldn't take too long." He stopped as he saw their faces. "What's the matter?"

  Dr. Ramachundra pointed outside. Fred swung the headlight to follow the motion. Then he grunted with disgust. The ship had taken the greatest strain where the peroxide tank had been located. The area was now mashed almost as flat as if there had never been a tank there. Obviously there was not a drop of peroxide left. While Fred had a little fuel, it was not half enough to reach the rendezvous with the other rescuers.

  They'd have to stay here until they could be rescued by Gantiy. At least the effort Fred had made wasn't all wasted; without his arrival, he reminded himself, the two men couldn't have survived.

  Now, though, there was going to be the problem of shelter. The one-man pressure tent was too small for all of them. The tractor cab was big enough, but it presented other troubles. When the motor was running it gave off enough heat to maintain warmth inside the tractor. When the motor was off, heat was provided by a trickle of fuel that warmed tubing under the floor. They couldn't afford that waste now. Unless the tractor could be insulated somehow, it offered no protection against the coming night and subfreezing temperatures.

  "I'd better look for salvage in the ship," he decided.

  Wickman had been through too much already, and seemed glad to be left alone, but Ramachundra bobbed along beside Fred. The ship was an incredible shambles; nearly everything in the cabin was ruined. There was one large tank of oxygen, unsuitable for coupling to the suits. He sent the little man back to the tractor with that. He found one corner of the freight hold open enough for him to reach in. There was a box of the incredibly strong glue used by the colonists to cement and repair the plastic for their hothouse. It might serve to cement insulation to the tractor cab's walls, since it could weld things together with the strength of steel. He dragged it out and went to inspect the insulation in the ship hull, where rips exposed it. The stuff was so thoroughly cemented that removing it was impossible. He turned to the radio, to see that a framing girder had collapsed across it, rendering it useless.

  Ramachundra had returned and stood beaming at the edge of the crater and the cliffs through an opening in the hull. "A strange and fascinating world, Mr. Hal-pern. Yes. I went exploring, even to the little cliffs. One learns to walk here, even in such a suit as this. Fascinating. Indeed, yes. There are caves there—like bubbles. Strange to find caves on the Moon where no men could use them, is it not?"

  "Yeah," Fred admitted absently. He'd puzzled over the mystery of the bubble caves; no one knew exactly what caused them. Then he jerked to attention at the idea that hit him. He grabbed up the box of cement and motioned the little man after him, hurrying toward the tractor.

  As they drew up beside one cave Fred had spotted from a distance, he realized they were in luck, for a change. The cavern was a little ten-foot bubble with a small section in front broken open to form an entrance. The floor curved, not too badly, and there seemed to be no breaks in the hard, smooth walls. Except for the entrance, it was probably airtight. The entrance hole, with a little enlarging, would just hold the little air lock section of the pressure tent. If that could be fastened in place with the cement, they'd have shelter far better than a tent, since the rock would serve as adequate insulation, holding an average temperature somewhere between the burning day and the freezing night.

  The air lock was an ingeniously simple device, consisting of a man-sized pocket of two sections of clear plastic. When one side was unzipped, a man could step in. It had be zipped up again before the next section could be opened. The plastic clung to the suits so tightly that almost no oxygen would be lost in going in and out. Fred cut the tent, leaving plenty of overlap for the cement to hold it to the rock surface inside the bubble, and began fastening it in place while Dr. Ramachundra transferred the supplies from the tractor to the inner cave.

  It took about half an hour for the plastic cement to harden, before they could turn on oxygen and fill the little cave. There was no sign of air loss.

  Wickman had been using his good arm to cut up the rest of the tent, shaping the foam insulation into pads to serve as beds. He had also rigged up a light, powered by a battery, and was working on the chemical pans that would soak up carbon-dioxide. Fred dropped onto one of the pads to rest for a moment before helping finish the job. His eyes were burning, and his head felt light and hot. He put it down on his arms to rest for a second. . . .

  It was still light outside when he woke, but he could tell that he'd been asleep for quite a while. The strain and lost sleep had finally caught up with him. There was no sense regretting it; he'd needed the rest. He saw that Wickman was also asleep, groaning faintly from the pain of his ribs. Dr. Ramachundra was sitting at the plastic section, staring out, with a tray of food beside him.

  "Another world," the little man said, and his face was curiously lighted from within. "Ah, Fred—if I may call you that? Yes. Ah, Fred, when I was your age, this was not even a dream to me. But inside was a longing. And now, I have crossed space and am here. It is indeed worth living for this."

  "Worth nearly dying for?" Fred asked.

  "Worth fully dying for. Oh, worth more than that."

  "I'm sure the colonists and Governor Gantry will be glad to hear that. They were afraid you might be opposed to colonizing here."

  Ramachundra sighed. "Yes. Without me, the World Congress would already have helped the colony. I have been the opponent to the plan, the one who kept it from being voted for favorably among the independent nations. That is why they sent me, hoping to convince me."

  He launched into a tale of a struggle that had gone on for years. The independent nations h
ad watched the United States quietly take over the Moon, though without official claims. They had dreaded the idea of space being settled by any one nation or group of nations. It should be fully international. When they saw interest fail on Earth, they detected a chance to step in, by recognizing the Moon as an independent nation. There were huge funds, available for aid to new nations. That was why they had also ordered three of the new-type ships to be built for them. But Ramachundra had always managed to get enough votes to prevent any resolution being adopted.

  "Why?" Fred asked. The man was obviously in love with space. His actions made no sense.

  "Violence!" The little man spat the word out. "I dreamed of new worlds where men could be free of animal violence. Then I saw men go out into space, and not only did violence go with them, but it increased. Yes, it grew worse. Space makes men more violent. You were violent in rushing here once, and the men who followed were violent in their haste. Those colonists—they attack the Moon to beat it into their mold, like savage men taming a savage beast. This rescue—a violent revolt against your leader, was it not? Even when you meet Major Wickman, violence flows between you at once. Fred, I hate violence. Yes, hate. I resent the violence that makes me feel so violent against it. No, I cannot help in such a conquest of space."

  Fred grimaced bitterly to himself. A lot of good he'd done the colony by helping to save the one man who could defeat them. Yet he couldn't bother thinking of that. He had a lot of violent work ahead of him, he realized.

  The sun was almost over the horizon as he trudged toward the ship rather than use the tractor and its precious bit of fuel. He carried a metal bar, striking the ground with it at each step. Why had his father bothered to send Ramachundra? Had he thought the sight of the colony would change the man's prejudices? It didn't seem probable. The colony was violent—it had to have a sort of violent fanaticism to survive at all. Worlds could never be won without violence.

  He went through as much of the ship as he could, prying out sections with the bar, looking for radio repair parts. He found them, half ruined by the buckling of the walls. He could only hope they would do. Then he pried out the radio and a set of batteries. Getting the antenna loose from outside the hull was harder. Eventually, he had everything, and headed back to the shelter of the cave, after leaving a marker near the ship pointing the way.

  Wickman was awake, quiet and obviously in some pain. He realized the importance of signaling the Station as much as Fred, and joined in going over the set. The radios in the suits and in the tractor were useless; they had a range of only a few miles and could not tune to the Station frequencies. Communication depended on getting this set fixed.

  The receiver was only in fair shape. The transistors and tunnel diodes were all right, but the printed circuit board had been broken, ruining the connections and some parts. Wickman worked on that while Fred dug into the mess that had been the transmitter.

  "I can jury-rig this," Wickman said finally. "No knowing how long it will last, but some of these parts will hold up under overload for a while. Need them?"

  Fred shook his head. The voltages in the transmitter were higher, and the components Wickman had picked were useless for his needs. He saw the pilot finish repairing and connect the receiver to the antenna that had been mounted on the rocks above and coupled by a lead-in that ran through a sleeve in the tent plastic. There was a hiss of static, but no signals. It was impossible to tell whether it was really working, since the Station would hardly be broadcasting all the time.

  They turned it on from time to time, while Fred fought with the complexities of the transmitter. He knew basic radio theory, of course, but this was highly advanced circuitry, and he had no real test instruments.

  He stopped to sleep when his hands began trembling with fatigue. When he awoke, the lunar night had dropped over the crater. Ramachundra was out somewhere, apparently watching the stars from the surface of the Moon. Wickman shook his head at the transmitter; he'd obviously tried to help but been unable to. "No messages," he said.

  It was hours later when Fred gave up. There were ruined parts in the transmitter for which he could work out no substitutes. Their only hope was that Dr. Sessions would convince the Station to order Gantry north to find them. For a brief moment, Fred wondered whether Sessions would have made the trip, once Fred took off; he knew it was just pessimism getting out of hand. The scientist would do everything he could, just as Fred had tried what he felt best.

  Abruptly, Wickman grunted. Something was coming over the receiver. It wasn't behaving as well as it should have done, and there was a great deal of noise in the background. But words were coming out, carrying a message beamed to the Moon from the Station. It seemed to be an argument with the rescue parties over the news Dr. Sessions had given. The receiver could not pick up the signal from the rescuers, and the one-sided signal gave little information. There was a long period of silence.

  "Calling Governor Gantry," the radio finally said. "If cross-checking original site shows no evidence of ship Cosmic Egg, a new search will be authorized on the basis of added information. We'll put it through the computers, allowing for added power and spin. Put young Halpern on."

  There must have been quite a discussion of that, from what Fred could hear. Well, his father had to know sooner or later that he'd mutinied. It might as well be now.

  It was over two hours later when the Station acknowledged the failure of the preliminary search and began sending down new lunar coordinates. Fred listened casually at first, then banged his fists brutally against his head, as if to change the words pouring out of the speaker.

  The new destination was more than forty miles southeast of where they were—too far to reach by the tractor with its tiny supply of fuel.

  Dr. Sessions had been unable to understand his mathematics well enough to convince the Station, and they'd figured their own orbit on the basis of false coordinates from the ship transmitter and a lower spin and release of power from the rocket tubes than Wickman had used.

  From the final sign-off, Fred realized the rescue teams were accepting the Station plotting instead of believing what he said. Eventually, when they failed to find the

  ship, they might turn back to this crater where Fred had marked the crash on the laboratory maps. By then, it would be too late.

  There wasn't enough oxygen to supply the little cave shelter until such a delayed rescue could reach them.

  Chapter 17 Life or Death

  fred sat staring through the plastic entrance at the darkness outside for a few minutes. He had no right to blame anyone, he realized. If Wickman had told him a landing could be made here under the existing conditions and that men could walk away from it, he'd have refused to believe him. No man could have such faultless coordination of nerves and muscles. Yet the pilot had known he did have them and relied on them without hesitation. Fred had no right to ask others to believe in a strange gift of his own, any more than he could have been asked to trust Wickman.

  He got up to study the oxygen left. Counting the supplies from the tractor and the big tank from the ship, they might stretch it a little more than two more days, but not much more.

  He got up and snapped on his spacesuit, heading for the lock. There was a physical need for exercise, to damp out some of the dark thoughts in Ins mind. He headed out aimlessly, keeping sight of the cave's lighted section to guide him back. It was a strange world here, he thought for the hundredth time. Something deep inside him liked it and the challenge it presented. Someday,

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  somehow, men would take it over. He might have missed his chance, but there must be opportunity for others.

  He had walked in a great arc when he headed back; he could see the little cliffs on his left. The cave mouth was hidden now, but he could follow the rocks back. He moved along, flashing his light against the rocks.

  The sight of the plants hit him without warning. He had come around an outcropping and flashed his light into a little ravine without thinking. Th
en he was staring at them—not one plant, or even a dozen; there must have been more than a hundred, spreading out, their odd little branches stretched to where the last sunlight had vanished.

  There could be no doubt that they were plants. At the top of each was a little budding growth like a partly opened tulip, bearing no relation to anything crystalline. It could only be a spore sac, ready to dump the seeds of more life onto the surface of the Moon for another lunar day.

  He stared at the growths, fascinated. There were no insects here to spead pollen, nor any winds to carry the seeds. The plants had found an answer of their own. The main stalk was bent like a bow, tensed to snap upright, tossing the spores outward. Like a bowstring, another filament of plant stretched down, holding the spore branch bent. It would hold until the cold of the night weakened it. Then, when the "string" snapped, the main branch would let go with enough force to throw the spores great distances.

  He let out a yell in his helmet and went dashing toward the tractor. In there, he rummaged through the material that had not been needed in the cave until he found an empty plastic bottle and cap used for dust samples. It would serve equally well to keep the spores in a vacuum until they could be studied.

  As he turned back, Ramaehundra came out of the cave. Fred had no desire to talk. He headed back to the plants, pointing them out to the other.

  Ramaehundra dropped down as Fred settled before one of the plants with the opened bottle. "Ah, the mystery of life," the little man said. "Yes, the great mystery."