Anti-Grav Unlimited

by Duncan Long

  Chapter 12

  As we neared the crater containing the Eratothenes Base, we came to a stop and “sneaked” up on the complex from behind, just in case it wasn’t abandoned. We kept low and used the mountains-like hills of the area to screen our approach. As we got within several kilometers of the base and had dropped over the crater rim, we hid behind any boulders that were large enough to conceal a floating van.

  When we had flown to within a couple hundred meters of the base, Jake pointed from behind me, reaching over my shoulder, “Look at that. Something’s very wrong there. See the crack in the front dome.”

  A large, jagged opening stretched across the dome of the control room. “What’s the white stuff on the ground?” I asked. “Paper?”

  “Looks like it,” Nikki agreed. “And other garbage from the looks of it.”

  “I’m betting the stuff was blown out of the dome,” Jake said. “A sudden decompression that caused the air to push things out as it escaped through the crack there on the side.”

  “That’s not all,” Nikki said. “There’s melted plastic down the south side of the dome—along the mining shaft. An industrial laser… But? What? Used as a weapon or something. An accident?”

  “Don’t think so,” I said. “The burnt plastic’s in a pattern. Crude letters—reversed—on the wall.

  If you were standing inside they would read ‘K F.’”

  “Why’d someone do that?” Jake asked.

  That was the fifty-four thousand credit question. I had a feeling we were about to find the answer. In the meantime, none of us could think of any code or words that had any important meaning. KF? And why would anyone do such a dangerous thing? They were lucky they hadn’t punched a hole in the mining dome.

  I circled the base slowly before landing. Everything looked quiet. “What do you think? Shall we land? I’m not too keen on meeting a crazy with an industrial laser.” I remembered what had happened the last time I’d seen an industrial laser fired. Having my smiling head sitting out in the lunar dust didn’t seem at all appealing, and I figured it had to hurt getting into that sort of condition, even if only momentarily.

  “Nothing seems to be going on down there now,” Nikki said. “Nothing’s lit up inside.”

  “Let’s land and sit a minute,” Jake suggested. “See if anything happens.”

  Good plan, I thought. If someone uses a laser to carve the van into little pieces, we’ll figure something’s wrong. But I also wanted the bots for my project, and I guess greed can overwhelm caution. I didn’t think about the danger for long and brought the van down, settling in front of the main airlock of the base.

  “We can’t stay too long,” Nikki said. “We don’t have much spare oxygen for the return trip.”

  I wished we’d loaded up a few more spare canisters. We’d planned on picking up spares in the Eratothenes base. Now that didn’t seem like such a wise course of action.

  We sat for ten minutes.

  Nothing happened.

  “I’m going to take a look,” I said. I was tired of waiting for a disaster to happen; it was more nerve-racking than doing something. I popped open the glove compartment of the van and pulled out my Beretta 92-F.

  “Will that work without air?” Nikki asked.

  “Yeah. The firing pressure is hundreds of times higher than Earth’s air pressure. The loss of the sixteen pounds of air pressure outside won’t be a strain on it. Jake, why don’t you grab the needle rifle. Nikki, you take the wheel of the van in case we need to make a fast run for it.”

  Jake and I extracted ourselves from the van.

  “Let’s split up,” Jake suggested. “You head for that boulder next to the air lock and I’ll cover you.”

  “Ready?”

  Jake steadied himself against the van and aimed at the entrance of the base. “Go.”

  I hippity-hopped toward a boulder near the airlock like a rabbit that had feasted on jumping beans, finally getting behind it where I caught my breath and aimed my pistol at the front access door. “Look’s quiet. I’ve got the Come on. I’ve got the entrance covered.”

  Jake bounced across the plain like a kangaroo and stopped by the door and waited a moment, his rifle at the ready. “OK. Come on up, Phil.”

  I bounced toward the door and stopped on the other side of it with the grace of a dancing hippo, plowing into the side of the dome hard enough to make my teeth rattle when my head bounced off the inside of my helmet.

  We waited another moment.

  “See anything, Nikki?” I asked.

  “Looks clear from back here.”

  “Just a minute,” I told Jake. “Watch the door.” I crawled over to the wide crack in the dome and peered into it, trying to see through the darkness inside. Throwing caution to the wind, I switched on my helmet lamp and inspected the interior of the dome in its bright beam.

  The inside had been trashed with paper and equipment scattered all over the floor. There didn’t seem to be anything moving inside. “The place is a mess,” I told the others. “Looks like the communication gear is smashed.” I moved to the other side of the crack and checked out the rest of the room. “No one’s in sight. No bodies either. The crack’s just a little too narrow to get through. Has pretty sharp edges.”

  “The shell’s too tough to break or pry open, ” Jake said. “Let’s use the door.”

  Wish I’d thought of that. I told myself with a grim smile. I skipped back to the airlock. Jake opened up the outer door, peeked in, then motioned and we both entered.

  “We have a problem, ” Jake said. “The inner door’s designed so it can’t be opened without cycling air into the air lock. That’s normally a safety feature; now it’s bad news since the dome doesn’t have any air in it.”

  “Maybe the system is out of air,” I said.

  “Yeah. Could be. Let’s try.” He pushed the cycle button. The door closed behind us and the chamber filled with air.

  “Damn,” Jake said. “We shouldn’t open the inner door with the pressure up in here and a vacuum on the other side. It’s pretty dangerous. Might rip our suits open if it sucked us in.”

  “There’s a pleasant thought,” I said. I aimed my Beretta at the wall leading out to the plain.

  “Maybe if the instruments think the airlock is pressurized but it isn’t… Stand back… This looks like a good spot? No hidden wiring or anything.”

  “Good as any. Stay away from the hole when you’ve made it. It’ll create some real suction at first.”

  I pulled the trigger. The discharge exploded loudly in the air-filled chamber and a small hole appeared in the plastic wall. The air hissed out slowly as our suits ballooned as the pressure dropped.

  Then the suits draped back against our skin as air rushed into the chamber with a steady hiss.

  “So much for that idea,” I said.

  “Forgot about the auto cycle,” Jake said. “Let’s see if we can turn off the power. Don’t get against the bullet hole!”

  I was glad he cautioned me since I about put my posterior end against it. Having the seat ripped off your pants in a vacuum would be more than embarrassing. I grimaced at the thought of getting a little “behind” into my work, as it were.

  Jake pulled off the metal plate over the emergency button which was located where the other one had been at our base. He punched it and the air quit running into the chamber and again leaked out through the bullet hole and our suits inflating once more.

  But, due to safety features, the inner door would not open. “Any suggestions?”

  “Fix thirteen.”

  “Which would be?” Jake asked.

  I laughed. “Whenever we had equipment that didn’t work right in the lab, we often resorted to

  ’fix thirteen.’ Brute force or some other override that the manufacturer never planned on seeing with his equipment.”

  Jake held up his rifle.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I’d aim about there.” I tapped a section of the door that I suspecte
d held the latching system.

  “What are you guys doing in there?” Nikki asked. “Everything okay?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Just a little problem getting through the air lock. We’re about ready to go in now.”

  Jake fired his weapon. The shower of sparks produced when the high energy slug hit the panel was spectacular in the closed quarters and I hoped it hadn’t peppered our suits with fragments. Not seeing any immediate leaks, we seemed to have met with success. Jake hit the button again and I pushed the door ajar, glanced inside and saw no one, then jumped on through the opening where I slipped, falling on my back, with a curse.

  Nikki said, “Hey, are you guys all right?”

  “Blasted lunar gravity,” I said picking myself up. I looked around to be sure it was still safe, saw no one, and straightened up. “Looks clear. Let’s give everything the once over.”

  “Don’t get side tracked looking at the damage,” Jake warned.

  That was easier said than done. The computers and machinery had apparently been smashed by a crow bar that was sitting on one of the control consoles. Spray paint had been used to write four-letter words as well as a lot of gibberish on the white walls of the control room. A madman seemed to have been in charge of the area.

  We moved into the crew quarters, several of which were completely gutted by what appeared to have been a flash fire. The hydroponics area was sealed off with air pressure having apparently been maintained in it. We looked through the clear door panel and could see that all the plants inside were dead .

  We continued through the complex. I held my pistol ready, wondering who or what might be waiting for us. In the mess hall, things appeared normal. The pantry storage area was full of food just as our base had been. The water tanks were full as well.

  The mining area was a disaster. An industrial laser had been left on for sometime and had created a pool of molten metal and rock where its beam had been shining. How long it had been on was hard to tell, but its tube was black, indicating that it was worn out. “Look at that,” Jake said pointing to the frozen metal pool.

  As with the base we had left, the mining operation itself had never been started.

  We moved back into the command room.

  “Nikki, how’s it look out there?” I asked.

  “All’s quiet.”

  “We haven’t found anyone in here,” I said. “But there are plenty of intact oxygen tanks. Why don’t you come on in. Uh… Do you have the key to the van? Why don’t you lock up. I don’t think anyone’s here, but…”

  “Will do. I’m coming in. Don’t shoot.”

  In a few moments, Nikki came through the doorway, “Looks like you guys could use a good house bot.”

  “Which brings up an interesting point. Where’re the bots?” I asked.

  “They said in storage shed eight, on the computer records” Jake asked.

  “Given the chaos that was going on here,” I said, “that may be a little iffy.”

  “Let’s see.” Jake bounced over to the wall of the command center and pulled a blue print out of its wall compartment. I moved alongside him to study the diagram.

  He continued, “Unlike our base, this one was—I think—to serve as a warehouse for the others… See. Here’s where the storage complex was to be built. According to this, most of it isn’t there yet. See the dotted lines? That’s the underground storage area. The entrance is… There,” he pointed to a small circle that led to the massive storage area. ” I think I noticed a small dome outside; didn’t recognize what it was.”

  “Makes sense since they’d be loading things up outside. And they wouldn’t want to waste air on it either.”

  Nikki’s voice sputtered over our headphones, “Hey!”

  Both Jake and I spun around with our weapons ready.

  “Hold your fire,” Nikki said. She pointed to the computer that she had turned on. “Just found the last entry in the log. Apparently the going-home party got a little out of hand with some syntha-drugs that the crew had made—or brought with them. The crew got pretty frantic… ‘K’ ‘F’

  (the letters inscribed in the dome roof) probably belong to one Kerry Franklin who was taken out in chains… Uh… The last entry is, ‘Base abandoned, Tuesday, March—’”

  “All right!” Jake said. “Officially abandoned. No one will be coming back.”

  “What about the bots? Anything about them?”

  “Uh… No. Nothing.”

  Jake was again looking at the blue print of the base, “The entrance to the storage area would have to be that little dome we saw off to the side of us when we dropped in.”

  “Bet so, let’s check it out. Nikki, want to come along.”

  “You better believe it. This place gives me compression blood.”

  Chapter 13

  From the ground, it was pretty obvious that a lot of equipment must have been transferred from cargo rockets to the underground storage area. The dust showed the trampling of hundreds of feet and claws where men and bots had carried heavy burdens into the warehouse. A few vehicle tracks crisscrossed the trail which stretched from the large landing port over to the small dome that marked the entrance to the underground storage area. The tracks looked like they’d just been made; the lack of atmosphere meant they would remain as they were for centuries unless someone disturbed them.

  The white plastic dome over the storage entrance was mostly door. When we released it, it parted along three seams and spread open so that it looked like some type of mechanical bird getting ready to take off.

  “Why didn’t they just store everything on the surface?” I asked.

  “Earther mentality maybe,” Jake said. “You see it all the time in space. We’ve all grown up with the ravages of the atmosphere. There’re some other reasons, too, though. The temperature’s more constant a few feet into the surface and there’s less damage to equipment during a solar flare.”

  “Solar flare!” I said. “I’d forgotten about that. How do we know we’re not being fried right now?”

  “See the little button on the wrist of your suit,” Jake pointed to his wrist then switched on his suit lights and bounded down the ramp leading into the cavernous storage chamber with one leap.

  “ If it turns red, you head for shelter.”

  I reminded myself to check my wrist indicator every five minutes from now on. “What shelter,” I asked as Nikki and I followed him into the cavern.

  “Underground,” Jake said. “The lunar rock gives shielding from radiation. Same reason the crew quarters and mess hall are underground.”

  As we reached the bottom of the ramp, we had to turn our heads about to bathe the area with our suit lights. Straight ahead from the base of the ramp were a number of lunar “rovers;” large, tracked vehicles that were useful only for traveling about on the surface of the crater since they couldn’t climb the steep incline of the crater walls.

  Next to the rovers were three platforms with a rail around two seats. “What are those?” I asked.

  Jake turned to see where I was pointing. “Those are two-man flitters. They use them for short trips around the cavern. They have a very limited carry capacity.” He laughed. “When we get other vehicles built with gravity rods in them, they’ll really simplify moving things on the Moon.”

  “And Earth,” Nikki added.

  “Revolutionary.”

  We journeyed down the right ramp to six empty rooms. Beyond that was a large storeroom piled high with plastic crates.

  “What are in those boxes?” Nikki asked and sprang toward them. She looked at those in her light then hopped over to some more. “Rats, they’re only bar coded… It’s impossible to tell what’s in them. We’ll have to look for the computer manifest. There could be enough stuff to outfit a whole colony.” She leaned back so her helmet light revealed the rows of crates that extended upward.

  “Let’s go back the other way,” I said. “The bots would be in larger containers. These are all too small.”


  We located the bots in a huge chamber that, like the others, had been carved out of the solid rock. Inside it were at least several hundred bots of various types along with an equal number of spare parts kits and support tools for the different models. Each of the bots was wrapped in a tough, clear plastic container.

  “How about that?” Jake said as we stood there bathing the bots in the light from our suits. “A whole army of them. If we can get some of these back to our base…”

  “The ‘if’ again,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “That’s not going to be easy given the limited space of the van.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Jake, could we use the cable you brought along? Would that hold?”

  Jake laughed, patting the carbonylon cable he’d wrapped around his shoulder and under one arm, “If the van can lift them, the cable will hold anything up to 14 tons. String them up under the van and away we go.”

  “Sounds logical,” I said, “only I’m afraid it won’t work. The downward wash from the anti-grav rods would cause anything below the van to either be knocked off or ripped apart. We’ll have to fill the van then fasten them to the top and sides.”

  “We’d better fasten them carefully so the load won’t shift around,” Nikki cautioned. ” I can imagine what might happen if one swung loose and flopped around changing the balance of the van at a critical moment.”

  Hurtling toward the face of the Moon because of a poorly tied square knot. Not a pretty picture.

  “Are the bots operational?” Nikki asked.

  “We’ll see,” Jake said. He stepped forward and pressed the release seam down the plastic cover. The cover opened; Jake reached in and flipped the control switch on. Nothing happened.

  “Looks like we may have some work to do. I wonder whether they lack batteries or just need to be charged. Anyone know how to open a bot up?”