Tongues of the Moon

by Philip José Farmer

  Broward sat down by Ingrid Nashdoi. She was a short, dark-skinned, small-boned, slightly overweight woman. She had light brown, very large eyes, very long eyelashes, and straight dark brown hair, cut short. Her face was a little too broad; her cheekbones were high. Although not pretty, she Was considered attractive because of her vivacity, intelligence, and wit. Now, she stared at the floor, her face wooden.

  Like a wooden Indian, thought Broward. Which was a natural comparison. She was half-Swedish, half-Navaho, a type of mixture not rare in these days. The Russians, during the past fifty years, had removed entire peoples from their native lands and placed them as colonists in barren countries for "redeemist" experiments. One of the areas that had seen a wholesale mixing of such nationalities and races as Swedes, New Zealanders, Turks, Peruvians, Thai, and so forth was the former Navaho-Hopi reservation of Arizona and New Mexico. Once a desert, it was now—rather, had been—a garden of farms that owed its green state to reprocessing of the surfact into soil and a plentiful flow of de-ionized ocean water.

  Broward and Nashdoi had grown up in the same neighborhood and attended the same secondary and primary schools.

  Then, they had gone their own ways, to opposite ends of Earth. Years later, they had met again, on the Moon. Broward had sharpened his rusty knowledge of Navaho speech by practicing it with her and her husband whenever he got a chance.

  "I'm sorry about Jim," he said. "But we don't have time to grieve now. Later, perhaps."

  She did not look at him but replied in a low halting voice. "He may have been dead before the war started. I never even got to say goodbye to him. You know what that means. What it probably did mean."

  "I don't think they got anything out of him. Otherwise, you and I would have been arrested, too."

  He jerked his head towards Scone and said, "He doesn't know you're one of us. I want him to think you're a candidate for the Nationalists. After this struggle with the Russ is over, we may need someone who can report on him. Think you can do it?"

  She nodded her head, and Broward returned to Scone. "She hates the Russians," he said. "You know they took her husband away. She doesn't know why. But she hates Ivan's guts."

  After the destroyer had berthed at Clavius, and the three entered the base, events went swiftly if not smoothly. Scone talked to the entire personnel over the IP, told them what had happened. Then he went to his office and issued orders to have the arsenal cleaned out of all portable weapons. These were transferred to the four destroyers the Russians had assigned to Clavius as a token force.

  Broward then called in his four Athenians and Scone, his five Nationalists. The situation was explained to them, and they were informed of what was expected of them. Even Broward was startled, but didn't protest.

  After the weapons had been placed in the destroyers, Scone ordered the military into his office one at a time. And, one at a time, they were disarmed and escorted by another door to the arsenal and locked in. Three of the soldiers asked to join Scone, and he accepted two. Several protested furiously and denounced Scone as a traitor.

  Then, Scone had the civilians assembled in the large auditorium (Technically, all personnel were in the military, but the scientists were only used in that capacity during emergencies.) Here, he told them what he had done, what he planned to do—except for one thing—and asked them if they wished to enlist. Again, he got a violent demonstration from some and sullen silence from others. These were locked up in the arsenal.

  The others were sworn in, except for one man. Whiteside. Broward pointed him out as an agent and informer for both the Russians and Chinese. Scone admitted that he had not known about the triple-dealer, but he took Broward's word and had Whiteside locked up, too.

  Then, the radios of the two scout ships were smashed, and the prisoners marched out and jammed into them. Scone told them they were free to fly to the Russian base. Within a few minutes, the scouts hurtled away from Clavius towards the north.

  "But, Colonel," said Broward, "they can't give the identifying code to the Russians. They'll be shot down."

  "They are traitors; they prefer the Russky to us. Better for us if they are shot down. They'll not fight for Ivan."

  Broward did not have much appetite when he sat down to eat and to listen to Scone's detailing of his plan.

  "The Zemlya," he said, "has everything we need to sustain us here. And to clothe the Earth with vegetation and replace her animal life in the distant future when the radiation is low enough for us to return. Her deepfreeze tanks contain seeds and plants of thousands of different species of vegetation. They also hold, in suspended animation, the bodies of cattle, sheep, horses, rabbits, dogs, cats, fowl, birds, useful insects and worms. The original intention was to reanimate these and use them on any Terrestrial-type planet the Zemlya might find.

  "Now our bases here are self-sustaining. But, when the time comes to return to Earth, we must have vegetation and animals. Otherwise, what's the use?

  "So, whoever holds the Zemlya holds the key to the future. We must be the ones who hold that key. With it, we can bargain; the Russians and the Chinese will have to agree to independence if they want to share in the seeds and livestock."

  "What if the Zemlya's commander chooses destruction of his vessel rather than surrender?" said Broward. "Then, all of humanity will be robbed. We'll have no future."

  "I have a plan to get us aboard the Zemlya without violence."

  An hour later, the four USAF destroyers accelerated outwards towards Earth. Their radar had picked up the Zemlya; it also had detected five other Unidentified Space Objects. These were the size of their own craft

  Abruptly, the Zemlya radioed that it was being attacked. Then, silence. No answer to the requests from Eratosthenes for more information.

  Scone had no doubt about the attackers' identity. "The Axis leaders wouldn't have stayed on Earth to die," he said. They'll be on their way to their big base on Mars. Or, more likely, they have the same idea as us. Capture the Zemlya."

  "And if they do?" said Broward.

  "We take it from them."

  The four vessels continued to accelerate in the great curve which would take them out away from the Zemlya and then would bring them around towards the Moon again. Their path was computed to swing them around so they would come up behind the interstellar ship and overtake it. Though the titanic globe was capable of eventually achieving far greater speeds than the destroyers, it was proceeding at a comparatively slow velocity. This speed was determined by the orbit around the Moon into which the Zemlya intended to slip.

  In ten hours, the USAF complement had curved around and were about 10,000 kilometers from the Zemlya. Their speed was approximately 20,000 kilometers an hour at this point, but they were decelerating. The Moon was bulking larger; ahead of them, visible by the eye, were two steady gleams. The Zemlya and the only Axis vessel which had not been blown to bits or sliced to fragments. According to the Zemlya, which was again in contact with the Russian base, the Axis ship had been cut in two by a tongue from Zemlya.

  But the interstellar ship was now defenseless. It had launched every missile and anti-missile in its arsenal. And the fuel for the tongue-generators was exhausted.

  "Furthermore," said Shaposhnikov, commander of the Zemlya, "new USO has been picked up on the radar. Four coming in from Earth. If these are also Axis, then the Zemlya has only two choices. Surrender. Or destroy itself."

  "There is nothing we can do," replied Eratosthenes. "But we do not think those USO are Axis. We detected four destroyer-sized objects leaving the vicinity of the USAF base, and we asked them for identification. They did not answer, but we have reason to believe they are North American." "Perhaps they are coming to our rescue," suggested Shaposhnikov.

  "What do I do?" said Shaposhnikov.

  Scone, who had tapped into the tight laser beam, broke it up by sending random pulses into it. The Zemlya discontinued its beam, and Scone then sent them a message through a pulsed tongue which the Russian base could ta
p into only through a wild chance.

  After transmitting the proper code identification, Scone said, "Don't renew contact with Eratosthenes. It is held by the Axis. They're trying to lure you close enough to grab you. We escaped the destruction of our base. Let me aboard where we can confer about our next step. Perhaps, we may have to go to Alpha Centaurus with you."

  For several minutes, the Zemlya did not answer. Shaposhnikov must have been unnerved. Undoubtedly, he was in a quandary. In any case, he could not prevent the strangers from approaching. If they were Axis, they had him at their mercy.

  Such must have been his reasoning. He replied, "Come ahead."

  By then, the USAF dishes had matched their speeds to that of the Zemlya's'. From a distance of only a kilometer, the sphere looked like a small Earth. It even had the continents painted on the surface, though the effect was spoiled by the big Russian letters painted on the Pacific Ocean.

  Scone gave a lateral thrust to his vessel, and it nudged gently into the enormous landing-port of the sphere. Within five minutes, his crew of ten were in the control room.

  Scone did not waste any time. He drew his gun; his men followed suit; he told Shaposhnikov what he meant to do. The Russian, a tall thin man of about fifty, seemed numbed. Perhaps, too many catastrophes had happened in too short a time. The death of Earth, the attack by the Axis ships, and, now, totally unexpected, this. The world was coming to an end in too many shapes and too swiftly.

  Scone cleared the control room of all Zemlya personnel except the commander. The others were locked up with the forty-odd men and women who were surprised at their posts by the Americans.

  Scone ordered Shaposhnikov to set up orders to the navigational computer for a new path. This one would send the Zemlya at maximum acceleration towards a point in the south polar region near Clavius. When the Zemlya reached the proper distance, it would begin a deceleration which would bring it to a halt approximately half a kilometer above the surface at the intended area.

  Shaposhnikov, speaking disjointedly like a man coming up out of a nightmare, protested that the Zemlya was not built to stand such a strain. Moreover, if Scone succeeded in his plan to hide the great globe at the bottom of a chasm under an overhang... Well, he could only predict that the lower half of the Zemlya would be crushed under the weight—even with the Moon's weak gravity.

  "That won't harm the animal tanks," said Scone. "They're in the upper levels. Do as I say. If you don't, I'll shoot you and set up the computer myself."

  "You are mad," said Shaposhnikov. "But I will do my best to get us down safely. If this were ordinary war, if we weren't man's—Earth's—last hope, I would tell you to go ahead, shoot. But..."

  Ingrid Nashdoi, standing beside Broward, whispered in a trembling voice, "The Russian is right. He is mad. It's too great a gamble. If we lose, then everybody loses,"

  "Exactly what Scone is betting on," murmured Broward. "He knows the Russians and Chinese know it, too. Like you, I'm scared. If I could have foreseen what he was going to do, I think I'd have put a bullet in him back at Eratosthenes. But it's too late to back out now. We go along with him no matter what."

  The voyage from the Moon and the capture of the Zemlya had taken twelve hours. Now, with the Zemlya's mighty drive applied—and the four destroyers riding in the landing-port —the voyage back took three hours. During this time, the Russian base sent messages. Scone refused to answer. He intended to tell all the Moon his plans but not until the Zemlya was close to the end of its path. When the globe was a thousand kilometers from the surface, and decelerating with the force of 3g's, he and his men returned to the destroyers. All except three, who remained with Shaposhnikov.

  The destroyers streaked ahead of the Zemlya towards an entrance to a narrow canyon. This led downwards to a chasm where Scone intended to place the Zemlya beneath a giant overhang.

  But, as the four sped towards the opening two crags, their radar picked up four objects coming over close to the mountains to the north. A battlebird and three destroyers. Scone knew that the Russians had another big craft and three more destroyers available. But they probably did not want to send them out, too, and leave the base comparatively defenseless.

  He at once radioed the commander of the Lermontdv and told him what was going on.

  "We declare independence, a return to Nationalism," he concluded. "And we call on the other bases to do the same."

  The commander roared, "Unless you surrender at once, we turn on the bonephones! And you will writhe in pain until you die, you American swine!"

  "Do that little thing," said Scone, and he laughed.

  He switched on the communication beams linking the four ships and said, "Hang on for a minute or two, men. Then, it'll be all over. For us and for them."

  Two minutes later, the pain began. A stroke of heat like lighting that seemed to sear the brains in their skulls. They screamed, all except Scone, who grew pale and clutched the edge of the control panel. But the dishes were, for the next two minutes, on automatic, unaffected by their pilots' condition.

  "Flutter your craft as if it's going out of control," said Scone. "Make it seem we're crashing into the entrance to the canyon."

  Scone himself put the lead destroyer through the simulation of a craft with a pain-crazed pilot at the controls. The others followed his maneuvers, and they slipped into the canyon.

  From over the top of the cliff to their left rose a glare that would have been intolerable if the plastic over the portholes had not automatically polarized to dim the brightness.

  Broward, looking through a screen which showed the view to the rear, cried out. Not because of the light from the atomic bomb which had exploded on the other side of the cliff. He yelled because the top of the Zemlya had also lit up. And he knew in that second what had happened. The light did not come from the warhead, for an extremely high mountain was between the huge globe and the blast If the upper region of the Zemlya glowed, it was because a tongue from a Russian ship had brushed against it.

  It must have been an accident, for the Russians surely had no wish to wreck the Zemlya. If they defeated the USAF, they could recapture the globe with no trouble.

  "My God, she's falling!" yelled Broward. "Out of control!"

  Scone looked once and quickly. He turned away and said, "All craft land immediately. All personnel transfer to my ship."

  The maneuver took three minutes, for the men in the other dishes had to connect air tanks to their suits and then run from their ships to Scone's. Moreover, one man in each destroyer was later than his fellows since he had to set up the controls on his craft.

  Scone did not explain what he meant to do until all personnel had made the transfer. In the meantime, they were at the mercy of the Russians if the enemy had chosen to attack over the top of the cliff. But Scone was gambling that the Russians would be too horrified at what was happening to the Zemlya. His own men would have been frozen if he had not compelled them to act The Earth dying twice within twenty-four hours was almost more than they could endure.

  Only the American commander, the man of stone, seemed not to feel.

  Scone took his ship up against the face of the cliff until she was just below the top. Here the cliff was thin because of the slope on the other side. And here, hidden from view of the Russians, he drove a tongue two decimeters wide through the rock.

  And, at the moment three Russian destroyers hurtled over the edge, tongues of compressed light lashing out on every side in the classic flailing movement, Scone's beam broke through the cliff.

  The three empty USAF ships, on automatic, shot upwards at a speed that would have squeezed their human occupants into jelly—if they had had occupants. Their tongues shot out and flailed, caught the Russian tongues.

  Then, the American vessels rammed into the Russians, drove them upwards, flipped them over. And all six craft fell along the cliff's face, Russian and American intermingled, crashing into each other, bouncing off the sheer face, exploding, their fragments colliding,
and smashed into the bottom of the canyon.

  Scone did not see this, for he had completed the tongue through the tunnel, turned it off for a few seconds, and sent a video beam through. He was just in time to see the big battle-bird start to float off the ground where it had been waiting. Perhaps, it had not accompanied the destroyers because of Russian contempt for American ability. Or, perhaps, because the commander was under orders not to risk the big ship unless necessary. Even now, the Lermontov rose slowly as if it might take two paths: over the cliff or towards the Zemlya. But, as it rose, Scone applied full power.

  Some one, or some detecting equipment, on the Lermontov must have caught view of the tongue as it slid through space to intercept the battlebird. A tongue shot out towards the American beam. Then Scone's was in contact with the hull, and a hole appeared in the irradiated plastic.

  Majestically, the Lermontov continued rising—and so cut itself almost in half. And, majestically, it fell.

  Not before the Russian commander touched off all the missiles aboard his ship in a last frenzied defense, and the missiles flew out in all directions. Two hit the slope, blew off the face of the mountain on the Lermontov's side, and a jet of atomic energy flamed out through the tunnel created by Scone.

  But he had dropped his craft like an elevator, was halfway down the cliff before the blasts made his side of the mountain tremble.

  Half an hour later, the base of Eratosthenes sued for peace. For the sake of human continuity, said Panchurin, all fighting must cease forever on the Moon.

  The Chinese, who had been silent up to then despite their comrades' pleas for help, also agreed to accept the policy of Nationalism.

  Now, Broward expected Scone to break down, to give way to the strain. He would only have been human if he had done so.

  He did not. Not, at least, in anyone's presence. Broward awoke early during a sleep-period. Unable to forget the dream he had just had, he went to find Ingrid Nashdoi. She was not in her lab; her assistant told him that she had gone to the dome with Scone.