IV
Frank Nelsen's view of empire-building on the Moon was brief, allencompassing, and far too sketchy to be very satisfying, asRodan--turned about in his universal-gimbaled pilot seat--spiralled hisbattered rocket down backwards, with the small nuclear jets firingforward in jerky, tooth-cracking bursts, to check speed further.
It was necessary to go around the abortive sub-planet that had alwaysaccompanied the Earth, almost once, to reduce velocity enough for alanding.
Thus, Nelsen glimpsed much territory--the splashed, irregular shape ofSerenitatis, the international base on the mare, the dust sea of thesame name; the radiating threads of trails and embryo highways, theever-widening separation of isolated domes and scattered human diggingsand workings faintly scratched in the lunar crust, as, at a still greatheight, Frank's gaze swept outward from the greatest center of humanendeavor on the Moon.
It was much the same around Tycho Station, except that this base wassmaller, and was built in a great, white-rayed crater, whose walls werepierced by tunnels for exit and entry.
The Tovie camp, glimpsed later, and only at the distant horizon, seemednot very different from the others, except for the misleading patternsof camouflage. That the Tovies should have an exclusive center of theirown was not even legal, according to U.N. agreements. But facts werefacts, and what did anyone do about them?
Frank was not very concerned with such issues just then, for there wasan impression that was overpowering: The slightness of the intrusion ofhis kind on a two thousand-something miles-in-diameter globe ofincredible desert, overlapping ring-walls, craters centered in radiatingstreaks of white ash, mountain ranges that sank gradually into dust,which once, two billion years ago, after probable ejection fromvolcanoes, had no doubt floated in a then palpable atmosphere. But now,to a lone man down there, they would be bleak plains stretching to adisconcertingly near horizon.
Frank Nelsen's view was one of fascination, behind which was the chillythought: This is my choice; here is where I will have to live for ashort while that can seem ages. Space looks tame, now. Can I make it allright? Worse--_how about Lester?_
Frank looked around him. Like Rodan, Lester and he had both pivotedaround in their gimbaled seats--to which they had safety-strappedthemselves--to face the now forward-pointing stern jets.
Rodan, looking more trap-mouthed than before, had said nothing furtheras he guided the craft gingerly lower. Lester was biting his heavy lip.His narrow chin trembled.
A faint whisper had begun. As far back as the 1940s, astronomers hadbegun to suspect that the Moon was, after all, not entirely airless.There would be traces of heavy gases--argon, neon, xenon, krypton, andvolcanic carbon dioxide. It would be expanded far upward above thesurface, because the feeble lunar gravity could not give it sufficientweight to compress it very much. So it would thin out much less rapidlywith altitude than does the terrestrial atmosphere. From a density ofperhaps 1/12,000th of Earth's sea level norm at the Moon's surface, itwould thin to perhaps 1/20,000th at a height of eighty miles, being thusroughly equivalent in density to Earth's gaseous envelope at the samelevel! And at this height was the terrestrial zone where meteors flare!
This theory about the lunar atmosphere had proven to be correct. Thetiny density was still sufficient to give the Moon almost as effectivean atmospheric meteor screen as the Earth's. The relatively low velocityneeded to maintain vehicles in circumlunar orbits, made its danger tosuch vehicles small. It could help reduce speed for a landing; it causedthat innocuous hiss of passage. But it could sometimes be treacherous.
Frank thought of these things as the long minutes dragged. PerhapsRodan, hunched intently over his controls, had reason enough, there, tobe silent...
The actual landing still had to be made in the only way possible onworlds whose air-covering was so close to a complete vacuum asthis--like a cat climbing down a tree backwards. With flaming jets stillholding it up, and spinning gyros keeping it vertical, the rocketlowered gradually. The seats swung level, keeping their occupants rightside up. There was a hovering pause, then the faint jolt of contact. Thejet growl stopped; complete silence closed in like a hammer blow.
"Do you men know where you are?" Rodan asked after a moment.
"At the edge of Mare Nova, I think," Frank answered, his eyes combingthe demons' landscape beyond the thick, darkened glass of the cabin'sports.
The dazzling sun was low--early morning of two weeks of daylight. Theshadows were long, black shafts.
"Yes--there's Tower Rock," Lester quavered. "And the Arabian Range goingdown under the dust of the plain."
"Correct," Rodan answered. "We're well over the rim of the Far Side.You'll never see the Earth from here. The nearest settlement is eighthundred miles away, and it's Tovie at that. This is a really remotespot, as I intimated before."
He paused, as if to let this significant information be appreciated. "Sothat's settled," he went on. "Now I'll enlighten you about what else youneed to know... Come along."
Frank Nelsen felt the dust crunch under the rubberized boot-soles of hisArcher. There was a brief walk, then a pause.
Rodan pointed to a pit dynamited out of the dust and lava rock, and tosmall piles of greyish material beside six-inch borings rectangularlyspaced over a wide area.
"There is an extensive underlying layer of gypsum, here," he said. "Thewater-bearing rock. A mile away there's an ample deposit ofgraphite--carbon. Thus, there exists a complete local source ofhydrogen, oxygen and carbon, ideal for synthesizing varioushydrocarbonic chemicals or making complicated polyethylene materialssuch as stellene, so useful in space. Lead, too, is not very far off.Silicon is, of course, available everywhere. There'll be a plantbelonging to Hoffman Chemicals here, before too long. I was prospectingfor them, for a site like this. Actually I was very lucky, locating thisspot almost right away--which is fortunate. They think I'm stilllooking, and aren't concerned..."
Rodan was quiet for a moment before continuing. The pupils of his eyesdilated and contracted strangely.
"Because I found something else," he went on. "It was luck beyonddreams, and it must be my very own. I intend to investigate itthoroughly, even if it takes years! Come along, again!"
This time the walk was about three hundred yards, past three smallstellene domes, the parabolic mirrors of a solar-power plant, asun-energized tractor, and onward almost to the mountain wall, imbeddedin the dust of the mare. There Frank noticed a circular, glassy area.
Strips of magnesium were laid like bridging planks across chunks oflava, and in the dust all around were countless curious scrabbled marks.
Rodan stood carefully on a magnesium strip, and looked back at Nelsenand Lester, his brows crinkling as if he was suspicious that he hadalready told them too much. Frank Nelsen became more aware of the heavyautomatic pistol at Rodan's hip, and felt a tingling urge to get awayfrom here and from this man--as if a vast mistake had been made.
"It is necessary for you to be informed about _some_ matters," Rodansaid slowly. "For instance, unless it is otherwise disturbed, afootprint, or the like, will endure for millions of years on theMoon--as surely as if impressed in granite--because there is no weatherleft to rub it out. You will be working here. I am preserving some ofthese markings. So please walk on these strips, which Dutch and I havelaid down."
Rodan indicated a large, Archer-clad man, who also carried an automatic.He had the face of a playful but dangerous mastiff. He was hunkered downin a shallow pit, scanning the ground with a watch-sized device probablyintended for locating objects hidden just beneath the surface,electronically. Beside him was a screen-bottomed container, no doubtmeant for sifting dust.
"Greetings, Novices!" he gruffed with genial contempt. But his paleeyes, beyond the curve of his helmet, had a masked puzzlement, as ifsomething from the lunar desolation had gotten into his brain, leavingthe realization of where he was, permanently not altogether clear tohim.
Rodan pulled a shiny object from his thigh pouch, and held it out in agloved palm for his n
ew employees to peer at.
"One of the things we found," he remarked. "Incomplete. If we could, forinstance, locate the other parts..."
Frank saw a little cylinder, with grey coils wrapped inside it--a powerchamber, perhaps, to be lined with magnetic force, the only thing thatcould contain what amounted to a tiny twenty-million degree piece of astar's hot heart. It was a familiar principle for releasing and managingnuclear power. But the device, perhaps part of a small weapon, wassubtly marked by the differences of another technology.
"I believe I have said enough," Rodan stated with a thin smile. "Thoughsome facts will be unavoidably obvious to you, working here. But atleast I will let you figure them out for yourselves, since you arewell-informed young men, by your own statement." Here Rodan looked hardat the pale, unsteady Lester. "We will go back, now, so I can show youthe camp, its routine, and your place in it. We have three domes--gardenand living quarters, with a workshop and supply dome between them..."
Quarters proved to be okay--two bunks and the usual compact accessories.
"Leave your Archers in the lockers outside your door--here are yourkeys," Rodan suggested. "Helen will have a meal ready for you in theadjacent dining room. Afterwards, take a helpful tranquilizer, andsleep. No work until you awaken. I shall leave you, now..."
It was a good meal--steak cultured and grown in a nourishing solution,on the Moon, perhaps at Serene, much as Dr. Alexis Carrel had long agogrown and kept for years a living fragment of a chicken's heart.Potatoes, peas and tomatoes, too--all had become common staples inhydroponic gardens off the Earth.
"What do you make of what Rodan was talking about, Les?" Frank askedconversationally.
But David Lester was lost and vague, his food almost untouched. "I--Idon't know!" he stammered.
Scared and embittered further by this bad sign, Frank turned to Helen."And how are you?" he asked hopefully.
"I am all right," she answered, without a trace of encouragement.
She was in jeans, maybe she was eighteen, maybe she was Rodan'sdaughter. Her face was as reddened as a peasant's. It was hard to tellthat she was a girl at all. She wasn't a girl. It was soon plain thatshe was a zombie with about ten words in her vocabulary. How could agirl have gotten to this impossible region, anyway?
Now Frank tried to delay Lester's inevitable complete crackup byencouraging his interest in their situation.
"It's big, Les," he said. "It's got to be! An expedition came here toinvestigate the Moon--it couldn't be any more recently than sixtymillion years ago, if it was from as close as Mars, or the AsteroidPlanet! Two adjacent worlds were competing, then, the scientists know.Both were smaller than the Earth, cooled faster, bore life sooner. Whichsent the party? I saw where there rocket ship must have stood--a glassy,spot where the dust was once fused!... From all the markings, they musthave been around for months. Nowhere else on the Moon--that I ever heardof--is there anything similar left. So maybe they did most of theirsurvey work by gliding, somehow, above the ground, not disturbing thedust... I think the little indentations we saw look Martian. That wouldbe a break! Mars still has weather. Archeological objects wouldn't staynew there for millions of years, but here they would! Rodan isright--he's got something that'll make him famous!"
"Yes--I think I'll have a devil-killer and hit the sack, Frank," Lestersaid.
"Oh--all right," Frank agreed wearily. "Me, likewise."
Frank awoke naturally from a dreamless slumber. After a breakfast ofeggs that had been a powder, Lester and he were at the diggings,sifting dust for the dropped and discarded items of an alien visitation.
Thus Frank's job began. In the excitement of a hunt, as if for ancienttreasure, for a long time, through many ten hour shifts, Frank Nelsenfound a perhaps unfortunate Lethe of forgetfulness for his worries, andfor the mind-poisoning effects of the silence and desolation in thisremote part of the Moon.
They found things, thinly scattered in the ten acre area that Rodanmeant tediously to sift. The screws and nuts, bright and new, werealmost Earthly. But would anyone ever know what the little plastic ringswere for? Or the sticks of cellulose, or the curved, wire device withfuzz at the ends? But then, would an off-Earth being ever guess the useof--say--a toothbrush or a bobbypin?
The metal cylinders, neatly cut open, might have contained food--driedleaf-like dregs still remained inside. There were small bottles made ofpearly glass, too--empty except for gummy traces. They were stopperedwith a stuff like rubber. There were also crumpled scraps, like paper orcellophane, most of them marked with designs or symbols.
After ten Earth-days, in the lunar afternoon, Frank found the grave. Heshouted as his brushing hands uncovered a glassy, flexible surface.
Rodan took charge at once. "Back!" he commanded. Then he was avidly busyin the pit, working as carefully as a fine jeweller. He cleared moredust away, not with a trowel, not with his gloved fingers, but with alittle nylon brush.
The thing was like a seven-pointed star, four feet across. And was theripped, transparent casing of its body and limbs another version of avacuum armor? The material resembled stellene. As in an Archer, therewere metal details, mechanical, electronic, and perhaps nuclear.
In the punctured covering, the corpse was dry, of course--stomach, brainsac, rough, pitted skin, terminal tendrils--some coarse, some fine,almost, as thread, for doing the most delicate work, half out ofprotecting sheaths at the ends of its arms or legs.
In the armor, the being must have walked like a toe dancer, on metalspikes. Or it might even have rolled like a wheel. The bluish tint ofits crusty body had half-faded to tan. Perhaps no one would ever explainthe gaping wound that must have killed the creature, unless it had beena rock fall.
"Martian!" Lester gasped. "At least we know that they were like this!"
"Yes," Rodan agreed softly. "_I'll_ look after _this_ find."
Moving very carefully, even in the weak lunar gravity, he picked up theproduct of another evolution and bore it away to the shop dome.
Frank was furious. This was his discovery, and he was not even allowedto examine it.
Still, something warned him not to argue. In a little while, histreasure hunter's eagerness came back, holding out through most of thatprotracted lunar night, when they worked their ten hour periods withelectric lamps attached to their shoulders.
But gradually Frank began to emerge from his single line of attention.Knowing that Lester must soon collapse, and waiting tensely for it tohappen, was part of the cause. But there was much more. There was thefact that direct radio communication with the Earth, around the curve ofthe Moon, was impossible--the Tovies didn't like radio-relay orbiters,useful for beamed, short-wave messages. They had destroyed the fewunmanned ones that had been put up.
There were the several times when he had casually sent a slender beam ofradio energy groping out toward Mars and the Asteroid Belt, trying tocall Storey or the Kuzaks, and had received no answer. Well, this wasnot remarkable. Those regions were enormous beyond imagining; you had topinpoint your thread of tiny energy almost precisely.
But once, for an instant, while at work, he heard a voice which could beMitch Storey's, call "Frank! Frankie!" in his helmet phone. There was nochance for him to get an instrument-fix on the direction of the incomingwaves. And of course his name, Frank, was a common one. But an immediateattempt to beam Mars--yellow in the black sky--and its vicinity,produced no result.
His trapped feeling increased, and nostalgia began to bore into him. Hehad memories of lost sounds. Rodan tried to combat the thick silencewith taped popular music, broadcast on very low power from a field setat the diggings. But the girl voices, singing richly, only made mattersworse for Frank Nelsen. And other memories piled up on him: Jarviston,Minnesota. Wind. Hay smell, car smell. Home... Cripes...! Damn...!
Lester's habit of muttering unintelligibly to himself was much worse,now. Frank was expecting him to start screaming at any minute. Frankhadn't tried to talk to him much, and Lester, more introverted thanever, was no starter o
f conversations.
But now, at the sunrise--S.O.B., was it possible that they had been herealmost a month?--Frank at the diggings, indulged in some muttering,himself.
"Are you all right, Frank?" Lester asked mildly.
"Not altogether!" Frank Nelsen snapped dryly. "How about you?"
"Oh, I believe I'm okay at last," Lester replied with startlingbrightness. "I was afraid I wouldn't be. I guess I had an inferioritycomplex, and there was also something to live up to. You see, my dad washere with the original Clifford expedition. We always agreed that Ishould become a space-scientist, too. Mom went along with that--untilDad was killed, here... Well, I'm over the hump, now. You see, I'm sointerested in everything around me, that the desolation has a cushion ofromance that protects me. I don't see just the bleakness. I imagine theMoon as it once was, with volcanoes spitting, and with thundrous soundsin its steamy atmosphere. I see it when the Martians were here--theysurely visited Earth, too, though there all evidence weathered away. Ieven see the Moon as it is, now, noticing details that are easy tomiss--the little balls of ash that got stuck together by raindrops, twobillion years ago. And the pulpy, hard-shelled plants that you can stillfind, alive, if you know where to look. There are some up on the ridge,where I often go, when offshift. Carbon dioxide and a little water vapormust still come out of the deep crack there... Anyhow, they used to saythat a lonesome person--with perhaps a touch of schizophrenia--might dobetter off the Earth than the more usual types."
Frank Nelsen was surprised as much by this open, self-analyticalexplanation, and the clearing up of the family history behind him, as bythe miracle that had happened. Cripes, was it possible that, in his ownway, Lester was more rugged than anybody else of the old Bunch? Ofcourse even Lester was somewhat in wonder, himself, and had to talk itall out to somebody.
"Good for you, Les," Nelsen enthused, relieved. "Only--well, skip it,for now."
Two work periods later, he approached Rodan. "It will take months tosift all this dust," he said. "I may not want to stay that long."
The pupils of Rodan's eyes flickered again. "Oh?" he said. "Percontract, you can quit anytime. But I provide no transportation. Do youwant to walk eight hundred miles--to a Tovie station? On the Moon it isdifficult to keep hired help. So one must rely on practicalcounter-circumstances. Besides, I wouldn't want you to be at SerenitatisBase, or anywhere else, talking about my discovery, Nelsen. I'm afraidyou're stuck."
Now Nelsen had the result of his perhaps incautious test statement. Heknew that he was trapped by a dangerous tyrant, such as might spring upin any new, lawless country.
"It was just a thought, sir," he said, being as placating as he dared,and controlling his rising fury.
For there was something that hardened too quickly in Rodan. He had thefame-and-glory bug, and could be savage about it. If you wanted to getaway, you had to scheme by yourself. There wasn't only Rodan to getpast; there was Dutch, the big ape with the dangling pistol.
Nelsen decided to work quietly, as before, for a while... There were afew more significant finds--what might have been a nuclear-operatedclock, broken, of course, and some diamond drill bits. Though the longlunar day dragged intolerably, there was the paradox of time seeming toescape, too. Daylight ended with the sunset. Two weeks of darkness wasno period for any moves. At sunup, a second month was almost finished!And ten acres of dust was less than half-sifted...
In the shop and supply dome, David Lester had been chemically analyzingthe dregs of various Martian containers for Rodan. In spare moments heclassified those scarce and incredibly hardy lunar growths that he foundin the foothills of the Arabian Range. Some had hard, bright-greentendrils, that during daylight, opened out of woody shells full ofspongy hollows as an insulation against the fearsome cold of night. Somewere so small that they could only be seen under a microscope. Frank'sinterest, here, however, palled quickly. And Lester, in his mumbling,studious preoccupation, was no companionable antidote for loneliness.
Frank tried a new approach on Helen, who really was Rodan's daughter.
"Do you like poetry, Helen? I used to memorize Keats, Frost,Shakespeare."
They were there in the dining room. She brightened a little. "Iremember--some."
"Do you remember clouds, the sound of water? Trees, grass...?"
She actually smiled, wistfully. "Yes. Sunday afternoons. A blue dress.My mother when she was alive... A dog I had, once..."
Helen Rodan wasn't quite a zombie, after all. Maybe he could win herconfidence, if he went slow...
But twenty hours later, at the diggings, when Dutch stumbled overFrank's sifter, she reverted. "I'll learn you to leave junk in my way,you greenhorn squirt!" Dutch shouted. Then he tossed Frank thirty feet.Frank came back, kicked him in his thinly armored stomach, knocked himdown, and tried to get his gun. But Dutch grabbed him in those big arms.Helen was also pointing a small pistol at him.
She was trembling. "Dad will handle this," she said.
Rodan came over. "You don't have much choice, do you, Nelsen?" hesneered. "However, perhaps Dutch was crude. I apologize for him. And Iwill deduct a hundred dollars from his pay, and give it to you."
"Much obliged," Frank said dryly.
After that, everything happened to build his tensions to the breakingpoint.
At a work period's end, near the lunar noon, he heard a voice in hishelmet-phone. "Frank--this is Two-and-Two...! Why don't you ever call oranswer...?"
Two-and-Two's usually plaintive voice had a special quality, as if hewas maybe in trouble. This time, Frank got a directional fix, adjustedhis antenna, and called, "Hey, Two-and-Two...! Hey, Pal--it's me--FrankNelsen...!"
Venus was in the sky, not too close to the sun. But still, though Nelsencalled repeatedly, there was no reply.
He got back to quarters, and looked over not only his radio but hisentire Archer. The radio had been fiddled with, delicately; it wouldstill work, but not in a narrow enough beam to reach millions of miles,or even five hundred. An intricate focusing device had been removed froma wave guide.
That wasn't the worst that was wrong with the Archer. The small nuclearbattery which energized the moisture-reclaimer, the heating units, andespecially the air-restorer--not only for turning its pumps but forproviding the intense internal illumination necessary to promote therelease of oxygen in the photosynthetic process of the chlorophane whenthere was no sun--had been replaced by a chemical battery of a farsmaller active life-span! The armor locker! Rodan had extra keys, andcould tamper and make replacements, any time he considered it necessary.
Lester had wandered afield, somewhere. When he showed up, Nelsen jarredhim out of his studious preoccupations long enough for them both toexamine his armor. Same, identical story.
"Rodan made sure," Frank gruffed. "That S.O.B. put us on a real shorttether!"
David Lester looked frightened for a minute. Then he seemed to ease.
"Maybe it doesn't make any difference," he said. "Though I'd like tocall my mother... But I'm doing things that I like. After a while, whenthe job is finished, he'll let us go."
"Yeah?" Frank breathed.
There was the big question. Nelsen figured that an old, corny patternstuck out all over Rodan. Personal glory emphasized to a point where itgot beyond sense. And wouldn't that unreason be more likely to get worsein the terrible lunar desert than it ever would on Earth?
Would Rodan ever release them? Wouldn't he fear encroachment on hisarcheological success, even after all his data had been made public?This was all surmise-prediction, of course, but his extreme precautions,already taken, did not look good. On the Moon there could easily be anarranged accident, killing Lester, and him--Frank Nelsen--and maybe evenDutch. Rodan's pupils had that nervous way of expanding and contractingrapidly, too. Nelsen figured that he might be reading the signs somewhatwarpedly himself. Still...?
At the end of another shift, Nelsen took a walk, farther than everbefore, up through a twisted pass that penetrated to the other side ofthe Arabian Mountains. He s
till had that much freedom. He wanted tothink things out. In bitter, frustrating reversal of all his formerurges to get off the Earth, he wanted, like a desperate weakling, to beback home.
Up beyond the Arabians, he saw the tread marks of a small tractorvehicle in a patch of dust. There was a single boot print. A shortdistance farther on, there was another. He examined them with aquizzical excitement. But there weren't any more. For miles, ahead andbehind, unimpressable lava rock extended.
Another curious thing happened, only minutes later. A thousand milesoverhead, out of reach of his sabotaged transmitter, one of those aroundthe Moon tour bubbs, like the unfortunate _Far Side_, was passing. Heheard the program they were broadcasting. A male voice crooned out whatmust be a new, popular song. He had heard so few new songs.
"Serene...
Found a queen...
And her name is Eileen..."
Nelsen's reaction wasn't even a thought, at first; it was only an eerietingle in all his flesh. Then, realizing what his suspicion was, helistened further, with all his nerves taut. But no explanation of thesong's origin was given... He even tried futilely to radio the pleasurebubb, full of Earth tourists. In minutes it had sunk behind the abrupthorizon, leaving him with his unanswered wonder.
Girls, he thought, in the midst of his utter solitude. All girls, tolove and have ... Eileen? Cripes, could it be little old Eileen Sands,up on her ballet-dancing toes, sometimes, at Hendricks', and hummingherself a tune? Eileen who had deserted the Bunch, meaning to approachspace in a feminine way? Holy cow, had even _she_ gotten _that_ far, sofast?
Suddenly the possibility became a symbol of what the others of theBunch must be accomplishing, while here he was, trapped, stuck futilely,inside a few bleak square miles on the far side of Earth's ownsatellite!
So here was another force of Frank Nelsen's desperation.
He made up his mind--which perhaps just then was a bit mad.
With outward calm he returned to camp, slept, worked, slept and workedagain. He decided that there was no help to be had from Lester, who wasstill no man of action. Better to work alone, anyway.
Fortunately, on the Moon, it was easy to call deadly forces to one'said. Something as simple as possible, the trick should be. Of course allhe wanted to do was to get the upper hand on Rodan and Dutch, take overthe camp, get the missing parts of his radio and Archer, borrow thesolar tractor, and get out of here. To Serenitatis Base--Serene.
His only preparation was to sharpen the edges of a diamond-shaped trowelused at the diggings, with a piece of pumice. Then he waited.
Opportunity came near sundown, after a shift. Rodan, Dutch, and he hadcome into the supply and shop dome, through its airlock. Lester andHelen--these two introverts had somehow discovered each other, and weregetting along well together--were visible through the transparent wall,lingering at the diggings.
Nelsen saw Rodan and Dutch unlatch the collars of their helmets,preparatory for removing them, as they usually did if they stayed here awhile, to pack new artifacts or stow tools. Nelsen made as if to unlatchhis collar, too. But if he did it, the gasket would be unsealed, and hishelmet would no longer be airtight.
Now!--he told himself. Or would it be better to wait fourteen moreEarth-days, till another lunar dawn? Hell no--that would be chickenishprocrastination. Rodan and Dutch were a good ten feet away from him--hewas out of their reach.
With the harmless-looking trowel held like a dagger, he struck with allhis might at the stellene outer wall of the dome, and then made aripping motion. Like a monster gasping for breath, the imprisoned airsighed out.
Taking advantage of the moment when Rodan's and Dutch's hands moved inlife-saving instinct to reseal their collars, Frank Nelsen leaped, andthen kicked twice, as hard as he could, in rapid succession. At Dutch'sstomach, first. Then Rodan's.
They were down--safe from death, since they had managed to re-latchtheir collars. But with a cold fury that had learned to take no chanceswith defeat, Nelsen proceeded to kick them again, first one and thenthe other, meaning to make them insensible.
He got Dutch's pistol. He was a shade slow with Rodan. "You won't getanything that is mine!" he heard Rodan grunt.
Frank managed to deflect the automatic's muzzle from himself. But Rodanmoved it downward purposefully, lined it up on a box marked dynamite,and fired.
Nelsen must have thrown himself prone at the last instant, before theticklish explosive blew. He saw the flash and felt the dazing thud,though most of the blast passed over him. Results far outstripped themost furious intention of his plan, and became, not freedom, but athreat of slow dying, an ordeal, as the sagging dome was torn from abovehim, and supplies, air-restorer equipment, water and oxygen flasks, thevitals and the batteries of the solar-electric plant--all for the mostpart hopelessly shattered--were hurled far and wide, along with therelics from Mars. The adjacent garden and quarters domes were alsoshredded and swept away.
Dazed, Nelsen still got Rodan's automatic, picked himself up, saw thatDutch and Rodan, in armor, too, had apparently suffered from theexplosion no worse than had he. He glanced at the hole in the lava rock,still smoking in the high vacuum. Most of the force of the blast hadgone upward. He looked at Helen's toppled tomatoes and petunias--yes,petunias--where the garden dome had been. Oddly, they didn't wilt atonce, though the little water in the hydroponic troughs was boiling awayfuriously, making frosty rainbows in the slanting light of the sun.Fragments of a solar lamp, to keep the plants growing at night, lay inthe shambles.
Rodan and Dutch were pretty well knocked out from Frank Nelsen'sfootwork. Now Dave Lester and Helen Rodan came running. Lester's facewas all stunned surprise. Helen was yelling.
"I saw you do it--you--murderer!"
When she kneeled beside her father, Frank got her gun, too. He felt anawful regret for a plan whose results far surpassed his intentions, butthere was no good in showing it, now. Someone had to be in command in asituation which already looked black.
"Frank--I didn't suppose--" Lester stammered. "Now--what are we going todo?"
"All that we can do--try to get out of here!" Frank snapped back at him.
With some shreds of stellene, he tied Dutch's arms behind his back, andlashed his feet together. Then he pulled Helen away from Rodan.
"Hold her, Les," he ordered. "Maybe I overplayed my hand, but just thesame, I still think I'm the best to say what's to be done and maybe getus out of a jam, and I can't have Helen or Rodan or anybody else doingany more cockeyed things to screw matters up even worse than they are."
Nelsen trussed Rodan up, too, then searched Rodan's thigh pouch andfound a bunch of keys.
"You come along with me, Les and Helen," he said. "First we'll find outwhat we've got left to work with."
He investigated the rocket. That the blast had toppled it over, wasn'tthe worst. When he unlocked its servicing doors, he found that Rodan hadremoved a vital part from the nuclear exciters of the motors. His andLester's blastoff drums were still in the freight compartment, but theionics and air-restorers had been similarly rendered unworkable. Theiroxygen and water flasks were gone. Only their bubbs were intact, butthere was nothing with which to inflate them.
When Frank examined the sun-powered tractor, he found that tiny platinumplates had been taken from the thermocouple units. It was clear that,with paranoid thoroughness, Rodan had concentrated all capacity to movefrom the camp's vicinity in himself. He had probably locked up themissing items in the supply dome, and now the exploding dynamite hadruined them.
Exploring the plain, Nelsen even found quite a few of the absent parts,all useless. Only one oxygen flask and one water flask remained intact.Here was a diabolical backfiring of schemes, all around.
Returning to Rodan and Dutch, he examined their Archers through theirservicing ports. Rodan's was as the manufacturer intended it. ButDutch's was jimmied the same as his and Lester's.
Nelsen swung Helen around to face him, and unlatched a port at herArcher's shoulder.
"He put even you
on a short string, kid," he pronounced bitterly, aftera moment. "Well, at least we can give you his nuclear battery for awhile, and let him have his chemical cell back."
Helen seemed about to attack him. But then her look wavered; confusionand pain came into her face.
Nelsen was aware that he was doing almost all of the talking, but maybethis had to be.
"So we've got a long walk," he said. "Toward the Tovie settlement. InArchers of mostly much-reduced range. Whose fault the situation is,can't change anything a bit. This is a life-or-death proposition, withlasting-time the most important factor. So let's get started. Hasanybody got any suggestions to increase our chances?"
Both Rodan and Dutch had come to. Rodan said nothing. His look was purepoison.
Dutch sneered. "Smart damn kid you are, huh, Nelsen? _You think!_ Waittill you and your mumblin' crackpot pal get out there! I'll watch bothof you go bust, squirt!"
Lester seemed not to hear these remarks. "All that gypsum, Frank," hesaid. "The water-and-oxygen mineral. But this is for real. There's nogimmick--no energy-source--to release it and save us..."
Frank Nelsen untied Rodan's and Dutch's feet, and, at pistol point,ordered them to move out ahead. From the charts he knew thebearing--straight toward the constellation Cassiopeia, at this hour,across an arm of Mare Nova, then along a pass that cut through themountains. Eight hundred hopeless miles...! Well, how did he know,really? How much could a human body take? How fast could they go? Howlong would the chemical batteries actually last? What breaks _might_appear?
They loped along, even Rodan hurrying. They made a hundred miles in thehours before darkness. With just Helen's shoulder lamp showing the way,they continued onward through the mountains.
Was there truly much to tell, in that slow, losing struggle? Nelsenattached the oxygen flask to his air system for a while, relieving thedrain on his battery. Then he gave the flask to Lester. Later he beganto move the nuclear battery around to all the Archers, to conserve allof the other batteries a little. Soon they filled the drinking-watertanks of their armor, so that they could discard the flask, whose slightweight seemed to have tripled.
After twenty hours, the power of the chemical batteries began to wane.David Lester, hovering close to Helen, muttered to himself, or to her.Rodan, still marching quite strongly, retreated into an unreality of hisown.
"Have another scotch on the rocks, Ralph," he said genially. "I knew I'dmake it... Nobel Prize... Oh, you have no idea what I went through...Most of my staff dead... But it's over, now, Ralph... Another good,stomach-warming scotch..."
"Damn, loony squirt's crackin' up!" Dutch screamed suddenly.
He began to run, promptly falling into a volcanic crack, the bottom ofwhich couldn't even be found with the light. Fortunately he wasn'twearing the nuclear battery just then.
Somehow, Lester remained cool. It was as if, with everyone else scared,too, and nobody to show superior courage, he had found himself.
The batteries waned further. The cold of the inky lunar night--muchworse than that of interplanetary space, where there is practicallyalways sunshine, began to bite through the insulation of the Archers,and power couldn't be wasted on the heating coils.
Worst was the need for rest. They all lay down at last, except FrankNelsen, who moved around, clipping the nuclear battery into one Archerfor a minute, to freshen the air, and then into another. It was the onlytrick--or gimmick--that they found. After a while, Lester made therounds, while Nelsen rested.
They got a few more miles by swapping batteries in quick succession. Butthe accumulating carbon dioxide in the air they breathed, made themsleepier. They had to sit down, then lie down. Frank figured that theyhad come something over a quarter of the eight hundred miles. This wasabout the end of Frank Nelsen, would-be Planet Strapper from Jarviston,Minnesota. Well--his coffin would be a common one--an Archer Five...Somehow, he thought of a line from Kipling: "If you can keep your headwhen all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."
He tried to clip the nuclear battery back in Helen's armor, again. She_might_ make the remaining five hundred-something miles, alone...! Hejust barely managed to accomplish it... There was still a little juice,from his chemical cell, feeding his helmet phone... Now, he thought heheard someone singing raucously one of those improvised doggerel songsof spacemen and Moonmen... Folklore, almost...
"If this goddam dust
Just holds its crust,
I'll get on to hell
If my gear don't bust..."
"Hey!" Nelsen gurgled thickly into his phone. "Hey..." Then it was as ifhe sort of sank...
Hell was real, all right, because, with needles in his eyes and allthrough his body, Nelsen seemed to be goaded on by imps to crawl, ininfinite weariness, through a hot steel pipe, to face Old Nickhimself--or was it somebody he'd met before?
Maybe he asked, because he got an answer--from the grinning, freckledface bending over him, as he lay, armorless, on a sort of pallet, underthe taut stellene roof of a Moontent.
"Sure Frankie--me, Gimp Hines, the itinerant trader and repairman of thelunar wilderness... What a switch--didn't think _you'd_ goof! TheBunch--especially Two-and-Two--couldn't contact you. So I was sort oflooking, knowing about where you'd be. Just made it in time. Les and thegirl, and that ornery professor-or-whatever, are right here, too--stillknocked out with a devil-killer. You've been out twenty hours, yourself.I'll fill you in on the news. Just shut up and drink up. Good Earthwhiskey--a hundred bucks just to shoot a fifth into orbit."
Frank gulped and coughed. "Thanks, Gimp." His voice was like pumice.
"Shut up, I said!" Gimp ordered arrogantly. "About me--first. When I gotto Serene, I could have convinced them I was worth a job. But I'mindependent. I hocked my gear, bought some old parts, built myself atractor and trailer, loaded it with water, oxygen, frozen vegetables,spare parts, cigarettes, pin-up pictures, liquor and so forth, and cametravelling. I didn't forget tools. You'd be astonished by what you cansell and fix--and for what prices--out in the isolated areas, or whatyou can bring back. I even got a couple of emeralds as big as pigeoneggs. I'm getting myself a reputation, besides. What difference doesjust one good leg make--at only one-sixth Earth grav? You still hopalong, even when you don't ride. And everywhere I go, I leave that leftboot print behind in the dust, like a record that could last a thousandages. I'm getting to be Left Foot, the legend."
Nelsen cleared his throat, found his voice. "Cocky, aren't you, Pal?" hechuckled. So another thing was happening in reverse from what mostpeople had expected. Gimp Hines was finding a new, surer self, off theEarth.
"It's all right, Gimp," Nelsen added. "I figured that I saw your tracksand your tractor tread marks, up in the hills, just before I decided tobreak away from Rodan..."
Then he was telling the whole story.
"Yes, I was there," Gimp said at the end. "I missed you on the firstpass, prospected for a couple of Earth-days, found a small copperdeposit. High ground gave me a good position to receive short-wavemessages--thought I heard your voices a couple of times. So I doubledback, and located what is left of Rodan's camp, and yours and Les'initialed blastoff drums, which I've brought along in my trailer. Luckya trader needs an atom-powered tractor that can move at night. Ifollowed your tracks, though going through rough country, you werescreened from my radio calls until I was almost on you. Though on myfirst pass, when you were still in camp, I guess I could have reachedyou by bouncing a beam off a mountain top, had I known... Well, itdoesn't matter, now. I'm out of stock, again, and full of money--got tohead back to Serene... You were trying for the Tovie station, eh?"
"What else could we do?"
"I see what you mean, Frank. If you could have made it, and missedgetting shot by some trigger-happy guard--where a frontier isn't evensupposed to exist--they probably would have held you for a while, andthen let you go."
"About the rest of the Bunch?" Frank Nelsen prompted.
"The Kuzaks got to the Belt okay--though they had to fight off somero
ugh and humorous characters. Storey reached his Mars. Charlie Reynoldsand Two-and-Two got to Venus, and hooked up with the exploringexpedition. Tiflin? Who knows?"
"Ramos?"
"Ah--a real disappointing case, Frank. Darn wild idiot who ought to beprobing the farther reaches of the solar system, got himself a job in achemical plant in Serene. A synthesizing retort exploded. He was burnedpretty bad. Just out of the hospital when I last left. It was on accountof a woman that he was on the Moon at all."
"Eileen, the Queen of Serene? Gimp!--is _that_ so, too?"
"Yep--sort of. Our Eileen. Back in Jarviston, Ramos found out that shewas there. She's a good kid. Even admits that she hasn't got muchcompetition, on a mostly--yet--masculine world... Well, I guess we startrolling, eh? I didn't want to jolt any of you poor sick people, so Icamped. Let's get you all into Archers, for which I have a few spareparts left. Then, after we roll up this sealed, air-conditioned tent ofa familiar material, we can be on our way."
"Just let's watch Rodan--that's all," Frank Nelsen warned.
"Sure--we'll keep him good and dopey with a tranquilizer..."
They aroused Dave Lester and Helen Rodan, helped them armor up,explained briefly what the situation was, stuffed Xavier Rodan into hisArcher, and climbed with him into the sealable cab of the tractor. Herethey could all remove their helmets.
After several hours of bumping over rugged country, with the tractor'sheadlights blazing through the star-topped blackness, they reached asolid trail over a mare. Then they could zip along, almost like on ahighway. There were other rough stretches, but most of the well selectedroute was smooth. Half the time, Nelsen drove, while Gimp rested orslept. They ate spaceman's gruel, heated on a little electric stove. Andafter a certain number of hours, they climbed over the side of the Moon,and made their own sunrise. After that, the going seemed easier.
Gimp and Frank were just about talked out, by then. Helen Rodan lookedafter her slumbering father. Otherwise, she and Lester seemed wrapped upin each other. Frank hardly listened to the few words they exchanged.They kept peering eagerly and worriedly along the trail, that woundpast fantastic scenery.
Nelsen was eager and tense, himself. Serene, he was thinking withgratitude. Back to some of civilization. Back to freedom--if therewasn't too much trouble on account of all that had happened. Speedingalong, they passed the first scattered domes, a hydroponic garden, anisolated sun-power plant.
It was another hour before they reached the checking-gate of one of themain airlocks. Frank Nelsen didn't try any tricks before thewhite-armored international guards.
"There have been some difficulties," he said. "I think you will want allof our names."
"I am Helen Rodan," Helen interrupted. "My father, Xavier Rodan, here,is sick. He needs a hospital. I will stay with him. These are ourfriends. They brought us all the way from Far Side."
Within the broad airlock compartment, Lester also got down from thetractor. "I'll stay, too," he said. "Go ahead, Frank. You and Gimp havehad enough."
"A moment," gruffed one of the guards with a slight accent. "We shallsay who shall do what--passing this lock. Difficulties? Very well.Names, and space-fitness cards, please, from everybody. And where youwill be staying, here in Serene..."
Gimp and Frank got permission to pass the lock after about fifteenminutes. Without Helen and Les agreeing to stay, it might have beentougher. They spoke their thanks. For the time being, Frank was free tobreathe open air under big, stellene domes. But he didn't know in whatweb of questioning and accusation he might soon be entangled.
Looking back to his first action against Rodan--with a sharpened trowelthat had pierced the wall of a stellene dome--eventually leading up toDutch's death, and very nearly precipitating his own demise and that ofhis other companions, he wondered if it wouldn't be regarded ascriminal. Now he wasn't absolutely sure, himself, that it hadn't beencriminal--or Moonmad. Yet he didn't hate Xavier Rodan any less.
"The S.O.B. might just get sent to a mental hospital--at the worst,"Gimp growled loyally. "Well, come on, Frank--let's forget it, ditch ourArchies at the Hostel, get a culture steak, and look around to see whatyou've missed..."
So that was how Frank Nelsen began to get acquainted withSerene--fifteen thousand population, much of it habitually transient; atown of vast aspirations, careful discipline, little spotless cubiclesfor living quarters, pay twenty dollars a day just for the air youbreathe, Earth-beer twenty dollars a can, a dollar if synthesizedlocally. Hydroponic sunflowers, dahlias, poppies, tomatoes, cabbages,all grown enormous in this slight gravity. New chemical-synthesisplants, above ground and far below; metal refineries, shops makingelectronic and nuclear devices, and articles of fabric, glass, rubber,plastic, magnesium. A town of supply warehouses and tanks around a greatspace port; a town of a thousand unfinished enterprises, and as manyparadoxes and inconveniencies. No water in fountains, water in toiletsonly during part of an Earth-day. English, French, Spanish, German,Greek and Arabic spoken, to mention a few of the languages. Anastronomical observatory; a selenographic museum, already open, thoughless than half completed. And of course it was against the law not towork for more than seventy-two consecutive hours. And over the wholesetup there seemed to hang the question: Can Man really live in space,or does his invasion of it signal his final downfall?
At a certain point, Nelsen gave up trying to figure out all of theaspects of Serene. Of course he and Gimp had one inevitable goal. Therewas a short walk, Gimp hopping along lightly; then there was an elevatorride downward, for the place, aggressively named _The First Stop_, wasnestled cosily in the lava-rock underlying the dust of Mare Serenitatis.
It had an arched interior, bar, stage, blaring jukebox, tables, and ashoulder-to-shoulder press of tough men, held in curious orderliness inpart by the rigid caution needed in their dangerous and artificialexistences, in part by the presence of police, and in part perhaps by akind of stored-up awe and tenderness for girls--all girls--who had beenout of their lives for too long. In a way, it was a crude, tawdry joint;but it was not the place that Frank and Gimp--or even many of theothers--had come to see.
Eileen Sands was there, dancing crazy, swoopy stuff, possible at lunargravity, as Frank and Gimp entered. Her costume was no feminine fluff;cheesecake, of which she presumably didn't have much, was not ondisplay, either. Dungarees, still? No, not quite. Slender blacktrousers, like some girls use for ballet practice, instead.
Maybe she wasn't terribly good, or sufficiently drilled, yet, in herroutines. But she had a pert, appealing face, a quick smile; her hairwas brushed close to her head. She was a cute, utterly bold pixy toremember smiling at you--just you--like a spirit of luck and love, farout in the thick silence.
Her caper ended. She was puffing and laughing and bowing--and maybesweating, some, besides. The clapping was thunderous. She came out againand sang _Fire Streak_ in a haunting, husky voice.
Meanwhile, a barman touched Frank's and Gimp's shoulders. "Hines andNelsen? She has spotted you two. She wants to see you in her quarters."
"Hi, lads," she laughed. "Beer for old times?... You look like hell,Frank. Brief me on the missing chapter. You had everybody scared."
"Uh-uh--you first, Your Majesty," Nelsen chuckled in return.
She wrinkled her nose at him. "Well, I got here. There was a need.Somebody decided that I was the best available talent. This is the firststep. Maybe I'll have my own spot--bigger and better. Or get back to myown regular self, working Out There with the men."
Maybe it was bad taste, but Nelsen felt like teasing. "Ever hear of aperson named Miguel Ramos?"
That didn't bother her. She shrugged. "Still around, though I hope notfor long, the buffoon! Who could ever put up with a show-off small boylike that for more than ten minutes? Besides, he's wasting himself. Whyshould he pick me for a bad influence...? Now, your chapter, Frank."
He told her the story, briefly.
At last she said, "Frank, you must be spiritually all jammed up. Gimp isset, I know..."
; In a few minutes more, Eileen introduced him to a girl. Jennie Harperhad large dark eyes, and a funny, achy sort of voice. Gimp disappeareddiscreetly with his date. Frank and Jennie sat at a table in a privatebooth, high up in the arches of _The First Stop_, and watched Eileen doanother number.
Jennie explained herself. "I'm another one. I've got to go where theheroes go. That's me--Frankie, is it? So I'm here..."
She had a perfume. While he was Rodan's prisoner for two and a halfmonths, there were special things that had driven him almost wild. Nowhe made hints, inevitably.
"I don't need Eileen to tell me you're a good guy, Frank," she said witha small, warm smile. "We're just entertainers. They wouldn't let us beanything else--here..."
It hardly mattered what else they said. Maybe it was fifteen hours laterthat Frank Nelsen found himself walking along a stellene-coveredcauseway, looking for Left Foot Gimp Hines. He had memories of a tinyroom, very neat and compact, with even a single huge rose in a vase onthe bed table. But the time had a fierce velvet-softness that tried todraw him to it forevermore. It was like the grip of home, and the lostEarth, and the fear that he would chicken out and return.
He found Gimp, who seemed worried. "You might get stuck, here, onaccount of Rodan," he said. "Even I might. We'd better go see."
Nelsen had bitter, vengeful thoughts of Rodan being set at liberty--withhimself the culprit.
The official at the police building was an American--a gruff one, buthuman. "I got the dope from the girl, Nelsen," he said. "And fromLester. You're lucky. Rodan confessed to a murder--anotheremployee--just before he hired you. Apparently just before he made hisdiscovery. He was afraid that the kid would try to horn in. Oh, he's notinsane--not enough to escape punishment, anyhow. Here the official meansof execution is simple exposure to the vacuum. Now, if you want to leaveSerene, you'd better do so soon, before somebody decides to subpoena youas a witness..."
Frank felt a humbled wonder. Was Rodan really accountable, or was it theMoon and space, working on people's emotions?
Leaving the building, Frank and Gimp found Dave Lester and Helen Rodanentering. They talked for a moment. Then Lester said:
"Helen's had lots of trouble. And we're in love. What do we do, guys?"
"Dunno--get married?" Nelsen answered, shrugging. "It must happen here,too. Oh, I get it--living costs, off the Earth, are high. Well--I've gotwhat Helen's father paid me. Of course I have to replace the missingparts of my equipment. But I'll loan you five hundred. Wish it could bemore."
"Shucks, I can do better," Gimp joined in. "Pay us sometime, when yousee us."
"I--I don't know..." Lester protested worriedly, like an honest man.
But Gimp and Frank were already shelling out bills, like vagabonds whohappened to be flush.
"Poor simpletons," Gimp wailed facetiously afterwards, when they hadmoved out of earshot. "Even here, it happens. But that's worse. And ifher Daddy had stayed human, she might almost have been an heiress...Well, come on, Frank. I've got my space gear out of hock, and my tractorsold. And an old buddy of ours is waiting for us at a repair andoutfitting shop near the space port. I hope we didn't jump the gun,assuming you want to get out into the open again, too?"
"You didn't," Nelsen answered. "You sure you don't want to look atRodan's site--see if we can find any more Martian stuff?"
Gimp looked regretful for a second. "Uh-uh--it's jinxed," he said.
Ramos, scarred, somewhat, along the neck and left cheek, and a bit stiffof shoulder, was rueful but very eager. Frank's gutted gear was out ofthe blastoff drum, and spread around the shop. Most of it was alreadyfixed. Ramos had been helping.
"Well, Frankie--here's one loose goose who is really glad to be leavingLuna," he said. "Are the asteroids all right with you for a start?"
"They are," Nelsen told him.
"Passing close to Mars, which is lined up orbitally along our route,"Gimp put in. "Did you beam Two-and-Two and Charlie on Venus?"
"Uh-huh--they're just kind of bored," Ramos said. "I even got Storey atthe Martian Survey Station. But he's going out into those lousythickets, again. Old Paul, in Jarviston, sounds the same. Can't get himright now--North America is turned away... I couldn't pinpoint theKuzaks in the Belt, but that's not unusual."
"I'll finance a load of trade stuff for them," Gimp chuckled. "We oughtto be able to move out in about five hours, eh?"
"Should," Ramos agreed. "Weapons--we might need 'em this trip--andeverything else is about ready."
"So we'll get a good meal, and then buy our load," Frank enthused.
He felt the texture of his deflated bubb. The hard lines of deep-spaceequipment quickened his pulses. He forgot the call of Earth. He felt asfree and easy as a hobo with cosmic dust in his hair.
Blastoff from Serene's port, even with three heavily loaded traderrockets, was comparatively easy and inexpensive.
Out in orbit, three reunited Bunch members inflated and rigged theirbubbs. For Nelsen it seemed an old, splendid feeling. They lashed thesupplies from the trader rockets into great bundles that they could tow.
Before the rockets began to descend, the trio of beautiful, fragilerings, pushed by ions streaming from their centers, started toaccelerate.
The Planet Strappers Page 4