Assignment Moon Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  Chapter One

  SHE smelled the tiger before she saw him. His male-cat odor filled the darkened cave. She scrambled alongside the rough sandstone walls that scratched her thighs and flanks, and then saw the cub’s eyes, glowing a phosphorescent green as he padded from his den. The cat grumbled, warning her away from his cool retreat. But she could not remain in the pit, now that the sun was up. Not for another day. She had to find relief, or die.

  “Please,” she whispered to the beast. “I beg of you. Let me be.”

  The cub was half-grown, but almost as heavy as she, with the distinctive stripes of the rare Hyrcanian tigers once hunted by the Sassanids of ancient times. He was not hungry. Food had been thrown into the pit for both of them. But he would not leave her in peace. He was like some strange watchdog, trained to observe her every move, ready to leap upon her in half-anger, half-sexual play, whenever she tried to penetrate the shadows of the cave. He paused and watched her with eyes like living emeralds.

  “Please,” she whispered again. “Just let me get out of the sun.”

  She shrank back, and this satisfied him, although his musky tomcat smell was stronger as he watched her. Fortunately, the blood had dried on her thigh where he had clawed her yesterday. Or was it the day before? She did not know. She had lost all sense of time here.

  She did not know where she was, or how she had gotten here, or why she was kept a prisoner.

  Her thoughts had been broiled by the sun, shattered like crystals in the cold nights, numbed by the incomprehensible situation in which she found herself. At first, she had tried to apply rational, scientific thought to the problem. But there was no beginning or end to it. She thought she might be mad, and clung only to the fact that she was undoubtedly alive, somehow, and had survived some completely impossible phenomenon that had deposited her in this place.

  She clung to a phrase that rolled over and over in her mind.

  “Mynameistanyaourpanayaandlhavebeenanthemoon.

  Mynameistanyaouspanayaandlhavebeenonthemoon.”

  The cat growled and padded toward her, head swinging from right to left, left to right. She backed out of the cave that was his jealously guarded domain.

  And found herself in the pit again.

  It was ten paces in diameter, with smoothly bored walls rising thirty feet overhead to a circle of harsh white sky in which nothing moved, nothing lived. She had never seen a sky of such venom before. Toward noon of each day, when the sun was at its height, the heat struck down like the blow of an axe, incredible, choking the breath from her struggling lungs, boiling the blood in her veins, flaying the skin from her naked body.

  Already a long, obscene pseudopod of white light dipped into the shaft along one wall, reaching for her. The girl whimpered and cowered back, hugging her bruised knees in a foetal position and staring at the cave entrance through the straggled screen of her white-blonde hair.

  How long had she been naked like this, living an animal existence worse than the cat’s? There was no beginning and no end. Only visions and fragments of nightmare madness drifted in her mind. She bit absently at her knee with strong white teeth, tasted the salt of her blood, and began to weep.

  She was a tall girl, when she stood erect; but lately she had begun to crawl about on hands and knees, reverting inevitably to a savagery equal to the animal she lived with. Her skin was the color of ivory, her eyes were very faintly almond-shaped, betraying her Chinese mother, and her face was a fortuitous blend of Siberian beauty and the delicacy of her mother’s features. She had blue eyes, an athletic body, with proud breasts and flat stomach and full flanks and hips. Dimly, she remembered how her exotic beauty had been an irritant in early years, when men troubled her and distracted her from her dedication to her work. She had been bred and trained and used for but one goal. Nothing else had mattered. She was like an exquisite tool, machined to the ultimate micro-millimeter of perfection. And she had been successful. This much she knew.

  "Mynameistanyaouspanayaandlhavebeenonthemoon.”

  And a mocking voice answered from above:

  “Have you now, my pomegranate?”

  She lifted her eyes slowly. The voice always inspired fear in her. It had a mad hilarity, a giggling of perverted amusement.

  “Mahmoud?” she whispered.

  “It is I.”

  “I am thirsty.”

  “My poor little beast!”

  “And hungry.”

  “You will be fed, my darling.”

  “And so very warm!”

  “Naturally.”

  “Let me out of here. Please. I will do anything you say!”

  Truly?

  “I promise.”

  “Then tell me something,” said the voice.

  “Whatever you ask.”

  “Have you truly been on the moon?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Ah, you are mad.”

  “I am going mad, yes.”

  “On the moon? Truly? What was it like there?”

  She hesitated. “Different.”

  “How, different?”

  ‘ “Hot and cold, light and dark.”

  “All these things are here.”

  “But different ” she said.

  How long were you there?”

  “I don’t know, Mahmoud.”

  “When did you get back?”

  I don’t know.”

  “How did you manage it?"

  “I cannot remember.”

  “You see? You are not willing to tell all. The master is still annoyed. It is too bad.”

  A head like a round melon swathed in a dirty rag appeared above the edge of the pit. The face was blackened by the sun, the open mouth gaped toothlessly, there was an ulcer on one cheek, and one eye was almost shut by a disease whose name she should have remembered, but could not. A skeletal hand began to lower a rope holding a covered bucket in which water splashed.

  “Mahmoud, what is up there?” she moaned.

  “The world.”

  “What else?”

  “Life, my lovely beast.”

  “When will your master speak to me?”

  “When you come to your senses.”

  “But I am going mad here!” she cried.

  Mahmoud’s giggle spiraled down to her in thin, venomous echoes. She clapped her hands over her ears. Something rubbed against her naked side, and she saw it was the eat. His breath was foul. The male odor that enveloped him stirred her in curious ways. She found it repulsive, but she was growing used to it. The cat growled and moved to the water bucket that Mahmoud manipulated down and tipped into a small concrete depression on the floor of the pit. The tiger drank first, with a huge delicacy, his glowing eyes always on her. He was always first. Later, there would be raw meat for him, rice for her. The cat allowed her the rice. Sometimes, when she ate, sitting on her haunches, he would be playful, and yesterday he had tried to mount her, his vast weight thrusting her down under his iron body. He would try again, she knew. And Mahmoud would watch it happen and giggle. . . .

  Hatred was a good thing. It scoured the mind like a clean fire. And she hated Mahmoud. She concentrated on this now, huddled against the wall, making herself look patient while the cat drank his fill of the brackish water. The rope still dangled from the top of the pit.

  The rope . . .

  The cat, the cave, and the rope. Somehow she must put them together, and escape. But how? She had no real plan in mind when she suddenly summoned her strength and leaped for the rope that Mahmoud dangled so tantalizingly from high above.

  There came a howl of alarm and outrage from the man above. For an instant, as her weight pulled on the line, Mahmoud’s head and shoulders surged over the edge of the pit. She got her naked feet
against the wall and clambered rapidly up—five, eight, ten feet, a third of the way to the dazzling disc of blinding sunlight. Then Mahmoud screamed and gave up trying to pull the rope from her. He let it go, to save himself. She fell back with a thud onto the pit floor. The shock of her fall almost knocked her senseless. She heard Mahmoud’s hissing curses, and a darkness washed over her. But she was given no respite. Her sudden effort had alarmed and angered the tiger. Growling, he leaped upon her, claws unsheathed.

  The pain that slashed her back revived her. Mahmoud had run away. The big cub continued to cuff and maul her. She rolled into a ball to shield her stomach and lay still. The cat’s fetid breath choked her. His sleek, lethal muscularity slid over her flanks and buttocks, and his rough tongue seemed to cauterize the cuts he had inflicted on her back. Finally his growling subsided into uncertain rumbles.

  Cautiously, filled with a feral cunning, she tightened her fingers on the rough rope. The tiger was doubtful about her, pacing about, his tail twitching. His great whiskered head lifted to stare up the walls of the pit. All at once, she seized the rope and whipped it about his massive neck, took quick loops about both her wrists, and hauled it tight in a strangling noose.

  The beast screamed. His great body convulsed into a thousand steel springs as he tried to bound into his cave. She did not let go. But his strength was something satanic as he dragged her with him across the pit.

  “Mynameistanyauuspanayaandlhavebeenonthemoon.”

  She struck her head on the floor and her grip relaxed for a moment. The tiger cub halted, bared huge fangs. She twisted and slid onto his back. He rolled over, and his enormous, stinking weight crushed her breasts and belly. His tail whipped in a frenzy as he began to wheeze, She dared not let go. He would kill her now, if he escaped the noose. But her strength was ebbing fast. The cat dragged her into the cave. Desperate, she managed another loop of rope about her wrist and tightened the noose even more. The tiger fell, and one claw raked her leg.

  It was a living nightmare, a recurring dream she had suffered as a child in Peking. She had felt strange there, knowing she looked far more Russian than Chinese. Sometimes, at night, she dreamed of a tiger prowling the barren, concrete apartment house, padding closer and closer to her room. Always, as the beast burst in to devour her, she awoke screaming, to find Papa at her side, cradling her, soothing her with lullabies.

  But now the nightmare was real.

  She could not kill the cat. It was useless. Her hatred ebbed into despair, and she slackened her grip on the rope she’d wound about the beast’s neck. She started to run.

  Out of nowhere, it seemed, a man’s hands touched her. A boot grated on the floor of the cave. The man spoke gently in a language she did not understand. Then he said in Russian: “Tanya? Tanya Ouspanaya?”

  She whimpered and kept her eyes closed.

  “Can you hear me, Tanya? It’s all right. The cat can’t hurt you now. You knocked him out. I’ll get you away from here.”

  She felt his hands on her naked, bloodied body, lifting her. She opened her eyes. They were inside the cave. The man was tall, his head outlined against the outer light.

  “How—how did you get in?”

  “There is a back gate, into these caves," he said. “I came looking for you, to help you.”

  “You speak Russian—with an accent—”

  “I’m not Russian,” the man said.

  “I don’t know where I am,” she moaned. “I don’t know how I got here. My name is Tanya Ouspanaya and I have been on the moon.”

  “So I’ve heard. Can you walk a bit?”

  “I think so.”

  He set her down gently, and took a canteen of water hooked to his leather belt and gave her a sip. Somehow, she trusted him. He was very tall, with a solid, comforting muscularity. The cat lay on its side, flanks heaving. The man had strange, dark blue eyes. His face was badly burned by the sun, and he wore desert clothes and a gun belted next to his water canteen. He

  would have seemed cruel, and terribly dangerous, except for the way he smiled at her. His revolver was an American make. She recognized that much, from her past training, and suspicion flooded her all at once.

  “Who are you?” she whispered. “What do you want with me?”

  “I’ve come to get you out of this place.”

  “But who are you?”

  “My name is Sam Durell,” the man said.

  Chapter Two

  DURELL had flown from Geneva Central to Teheran four days earlier. He’d had thirty minutes’ notice, and a promise of briefing in Istanbul en route, before he caught his Pan Am flight. It did not trouble him. He was accustomed to emergency procedure. His work as sub-chief in field operations for K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency did not allow for the normal amenities. He phoned Deirdre Padgett, who was on rest period at St. Moritz, packed a single grip, took the passport and diplomatic pouch that described him as an attaché in State‘s legal department—he had a qualifying degree from Yale—and caught the designated flight with ten minutes to spare.

  It was high summer, and he did not look forward to the smothering heat in Teheran. He spoke enough Farsi to get by in Iran, and some Arabic and Kurdish, which might also help. He gave the other passengers a careful scanning when he got aboard—he was always a careful man—and decided there was no one to worry about. Some American tourists, two pompous West German industrialists, five intense Swiss, a murmuring family of Indians, a smug Hong Kong merchant, a nervous Frenchman and his wife, an equally nervous Englishwoman traveling alone, and no Turks. Just the same, he did not sleep.

  Durell had been in the business a long time. He could no longer conceive of any other way of life. The norms by which most men lived were not for him. Indeed, they had grown alien and uncomfortable. When General Dickinson McFee, that gray, unpredictable man back at No. 20 Annapolis Street, suggested a desk job, Durell had refused, and renewed his standard annual contract, ignoring the fact that Analysis and Synthesis had noted in his dossier that his survival factor had just about run out.

  He was not a man for the gimmickry thought up by the lab boys, and his Cajun temperament, derived from his boyhood in the Louisiana bayous, leaned more toward the informed gamble than to the plodding teamwork that seemed to reduce everything to a lowest common denominator. He spoke a score of languages and dialects fluently, and knew intimately an amazing number of the world’s dark and crooked alleys. He could make himself at home anywhere—in a Mayfair flat in London, a Paris existentialist’s salon, the Libyan desert, a Hong Kong sampan, the Thai jungles. He was big, with a heavy musculature, but he walked with a lithe agility that sometimes betrayed him. He could kill with his fingers, a needle, a rolled newspaper—and he had done so, more often than he cared to think about. There was a red tab on his file at KGB headquarters at No. 2 Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow, and another in Ta-Po’s security office in Peking. Chang Hung Ta-Po, head of Mr. Mao’s intelligence service, had personally sworn to dismember his dead body. This did not trouble Durell, either, except to increase the care he took in so many small, vital things. He never turned a corner with ease, or opened a door without proper procedure. He had seen good men die because of a moment‘s hesitation. It had put gray in his thick black hair and darkened his blue eyes and added cruel lines to his mouth. He was different. He walked apart from others. But there could never be another kind of life for him.

  Avram Yigit met him in Istanbul.

  “Come with me, Cajun,” Yigit said, gripping his right arm with iron fingers.

  Durell disengaged his arm from the Turk’s hand. “Won’t you ever learn, Avram?”

  The man who ran Istanbul Central for K Section smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Sam. It is a habit, to touch, to grasp people. I am a little excited, I think.”

  “You have something for me?”

  “Over coffee. There is time. We're clean here. And I have four men within call.”

  “You never know,” Durell said.

  The coffee
in its tiny cup could have walked across the table by itself. Durell lit one of his rare cigarettes and watched the crowd in the airport cafe over Avram Yigit’s thick shoulders. The Turk had smooth cheeks, small shoe-button eyes, thick hands. He had operated Istanbul Central for six years. The things against him were his wife and five children, and an occasional yen for an opium pipe. He was the best that could be had.

  “You’re supposed to brief me,” Durell said.

  “I only have partial information, Sam. But you are to find Tanya Ouspanaya.”

  “The Soviet cosmonaut? The one who could win a beauty contest without half trying?” Durell paused. “I know her father. Met him in Brussels once, at a science conference. I covered as a clerk there. Fine man.”

  “Brilliant. A Chinese wife, you know?”

  “She’s still in China,” Durell said.

  “But Tanya, their daughter, has been on the moon,” Yigit said quietly. “And returned.” The words were spoken without stress, almost with weariness. Durell looked at the Turk. Yigit smiled sadly. “It opens—how do you say it?—a can of worms.”

  “It’s not possible,” Durell said flatly.

  “How, not?”

  “We’d know it. Our monitors would show it.”

  “It was done. They were up there.”

  Durell put his hand flat on the small café table. “With no propaganda release?”

  “A campaign was planned. Moscow was all ready for it, when she returned. But then—nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “Not a word. They do not have her.”

  “Where is she, then?”

  “That is for you to find out,” Yigit said. “Urgently. With top priority.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Do the Russians know?”

  “They are looking. Desperately. Others, too. Your friend, Chang Hung Ta-Po, is in Teheran. The People’s Republic of China claims Tanya Ouspanaya as a citizen, since her mother opted for Peking.”

  Durell’s eyes went dark. “Pandora’s box, indeed.

  Why in Teheran?”

  “That is where Tanya was last seen.”