Jeff Sutton

by First on the Moon

  The trip was more difficult than he had anticipated. Twice they were forced- to detour around deep fissures. Before they had gone very far Crag's radiation counter came to life. He made a note of the spot thinking that later they would map the boundaries of the radioactive area. Once or twice he checked his course with Prochaska. His oxygen meter told him they would have to hurry when they topped a low knoll of glazed rock and came upon the ship.

  He stopped and turned, watching Richter. If he had expected any show of emotion he was disappointed. His face was impassive. It gave Crag the feeling that he wasn't really seeing the rocket—that he was looking far beyond, into nothingness. His eyes behind the face plate were vacuous pools.

  "We didn't have time to bury your companions," Crag said matter-of-factly. He indicated the rocket with a motion of his head and his voice turned cruel:

  "They're still in there."

  Richter's expression remained unchanged. "It doesn't make much difference here," he said finally. He turned and faced Crag.

  "One thing you should understand. They," he swept his arm toward Bandit, "were the mihtary." "And you?"

  Richter said stiffly: "I am a scientist."

  "Who destroyed our drone thinking it was us." They faced each other across the bleak lunar desert. The German's eyes had become blue fires—azure coals leaping into flame.

  "It makes no difference what you think," he said after a moment. "My conscience is clear."

  "Nuts." LarkweD spat the word with disgust. Richter shrugged and turned back toward the rocket. Crag looked at him with varying emotions. One thing was sure, he thought. Richter was a cool customer. He had seen new depths in his blue eyes when they had faced each other. They were hard eyes, ablaze with ice . . the eyes of a fanatic—or a saint He pushed the thought aside.

  Prochaska came in on the phones to inquire about their oxygen. Crag checked, chagrined to find that it was too low to spend more than a few minutes at the rocket. He opened the arms locker, thinking he would have to get rid of the weapons. They could be dangerous in the wrong hands. He had been unable to carry them back the first trip. Then he had regarded them as something totally useless on the moon. Now he wasn't so sure.

  He hurriedly studied the space cabin, seeking the information Gotch had requested. The floor and walls were heavily padded with some foam material—standard procedure to absorb vibration and attenuate noise. Aside from the controls, there were no projecting metal surfaces or hard corners . . . the view ports were larger . acceleration pads smaller, thicker. All in all, the cabins of the two rockets were quite similar. He was examining the contents of the supply cabinets when LarkweD reminded him of their diminishing oxygen supply. They hurriedly plundered Bandit of six oxygen cylinders and started back across Arzachel's desolate plain.

  Crag arbitrarily broke the lunar day into twenty-four hour periods to correspond with earth time. Twelve hours were considered as "day," the remaining time as "night." He set Up regular communication periods in order to schedule their activities. Under the arrangement Alpine came in prompdy at exacdy a half-hour before breakfast—0500 by earth clock —and again following the evening meal. Prochaska monitored the channel during the workday to cover possible urgent messages. The schedule allowed a twelve-hour work period during the day and a three-hour work period following the evening meal, from 7:00 to 10:00. The communication periods quickly deteriorated into routine sessions—a good omen to Crag—but Cotch kept his finger in the pie. Crag had the satisfaction of knowing he was available around the clock. Consequendy, when the communicator came to life midway through the regular twelve-hour work period, he knew something was brewing—something he wasn't going to like. So did Prochaska. His voice, when he called Crag to the communicator, spelled trouble.

  Crag used the ear microphones for privacy and acknowledged the call with a distinct feeling of unease. As he had expected, the caller was Cotch.

  "Drone Charlie was launched at 0600," he told Crag. "Well feed you the data on the regular channels." There was a brief silence. "This one's got to make it," he added significantly.

  Crag said stonily: "Well do our best"

  "I know you will, Commander. I have absolutely no fear on that score. How's everything going?" The twangy voice across the abyss of space took on a solicitous tone that set his nerves on edge. Something's wrong—something bad, he thought. The Colonel sounded like a doctor asking a dying patient how he felt.

  "Okay, everything seems in hand. We've got the ship in good shape and Larkwell thinks we might fare pretty well with the drone. It might be in better shape than we first thought"

  "Good, good, glad to hear it. We need a silver lining once in a while, eh?"

  "Yeah, but I'm fairly certain you didn't call just to cheer me up," Crag said dryly. "What's on your mind?" The silence came again, a little longer this time.

  CHAPTER 13

  "YOU'RE IN TROUBLE." Gotch spoke like a man carefully choosing his words. "Intelligence informs us that another rocket's been fired from east of the Caspian. BuNav's got a track on it" Crag waited.

  "There are two possibilities," Gotch continued. "The first and most logical assumption is that it's manned. We surmise that from the fact that their first manned rocket was successful—that is, as far as reaching the moon is concerned The assumption is further borne out by its trajectory and rate of acceleration." His voice fell off.

  "And the second possibility?" Crag prompted.

  "Warhead," Gotch said succinctly. "Intelligence informs us that the enemy is prepared to blow Arzachel off the face of the moon-if they fail to take it over. And they have failed —so far." Crag tossed the idea around in his mind.

  He said fretfully, "I doubt if they could put a warhead down on Arzachel. That takes some doing. Hell, it's tough enough to monitor one in from here, let alone smack from earth."

  "I think you're right, but they can try." Gotch's voice became brisk. "Here's the dope as we see it. We think the rocket contains a landing party for the purpose of establishing a moon base. In Arzachel, naturally, because that's where the lode is."

  "More to the point, you expect an attack on Pickering Base," Crag interjected.

  "Well, yes, I think that is a reasonable assumption. . . ."

  Crag weighed the information. Cotch was probably right. A nuclear explosion on the moon would be detected on earth. That was the dangerous course—the shot that could usher in World War III and perhaps a new cave era.

  Attack by a landing party seemed more logical They batted ideas back and forth. The Colonel suggested that just before the landing phase of Red Dog—the code name assigned the new rocket—Crag post armed guards at some point covering the Aztec.

  "Might as well get some use out of Bandit's automatic weapons," Gotch dryly concluded.

  Crag disagreed. He didn't think it likely that any attack would take the form of a simple armed assault. "That would give us time to get off a message," he argued. "They can't afford that"

  Gotch pointed out that neither could they launch a missile while still in space. "A homing weapon couldn't differentiate between Aztec, Baker and Bandit," he said.

  "But they'd still have to have some sure fire quick-kill method," Crag insisted.

  "You may be right. Have you a better plan?"

  Crag did, and outlined it in some detail. Gotch listened without comment until he had finished.

  "Could work," he said finally. "However, it's going to shoot your schedule, even if you could do it." "Why can't we?"

  "You're not supermen, Commander," he said tersely. "The psychiatrists here inform us that your crew—as individuals—should be near the breaking point. We know the cumulative strain. To be truthful with you, we've been getting gray hair over that prospect"

  "Nuts to the psychiatrists," Crag declared with a certainty he didn't feel. "Men don't break when their survival depends on their sanity."

  "No?" The single word came across the void, soft and low.

  "We can do it," Crag persisted.


  "All right, I agree with the plan. I think you're wrong but you're the Commander in the field." His voice was flat. "Good luck." He cut off abrupdy.

  Crag looked at the silent panel for a moment. Another problem, another solution required. Maybe Cotch was right Maybe they'd all wind up as candidates for the laughing academy—if they lived long enough. The thought didn't cheer him. Well, he'd better get moving. There was a lot to be done. He looked up and saw the question in Prochaska's eyes. Might as well tell him, he thought

  He repeated the information Gotch had given, together with his plan. Frochaska listened quiedy, nodding from time to time. When he finished, they discussed the pros and cons of Crag's proposed course of action. Frochaska thought it would work. In the end they decided to pursue the plan without telling the others the full story. It might be the breaking point, especially for Nagel, and they would be needing a good oxygen, man in the coming days. Crag got on the interphone and called LarkwelL who was working in the tail section with the others.

  "Judging from what you've seen of Bandit, how long would it take to make it livable as crew quarters?"

  "Why?" he asked querulously.

  "I haven't time to go into that now," Crag said evenly. "Just give me your best estimate." "You can't make it livable. It's hot."

  "Not that hot. You've just got the radiation creeps. Let's have the estimate."

  Larkwell considered a moment. "There's quite a weld job on the hull, assuming we could get the necessary patch metal from Bandit. We'd have to haul one helluva lot of gear across that damned desert—"

  "How long?" Crag cut in.

  "Well, three days, at least. But that's a minimum figure."

  "That's the figure you'll have to meet," Crag promised grimly. "Start now. Use Nagel and Richter. Load up the gear you'll need and get in a trip before chow."

  "Now?" Larkwell's voice was incredulous. "What about winding up this job first? The airlock is damned important"

  "Drop it," Crag said briefly. There was silence at die other end of the interphone.

  "Okay," the construction boss grumbled finally.

  Crag suggested that Prochaska make the first trip with them to look over Bandit's electronic gear. He would need to know what repairs and modifications would be necessary to make it usable. The Chief was delighted. It would mark the first time he'd been out of the space cabin since the day of their landing.

  Crag watched them leave through the port. It was impossible to tell the crew members apart In their bulky garments. The extra oxygen and the tools Larkwell had selected gave them an odd shambling gait, despite the low gravity. They plodded in single file, winding slowly across the plain. The thought struck him that they resembled grotesque life forms from some alien planet. For just a moment he felt sorry, and a trifle guilty, over assigning

  Nagel to the trip. The oxygen man was already in a state of perpetual fatigue. Still, he couldn't allow anyone the luxury of rest. Work was in the cards—grueling, slavish toil if they were to survive.

  It struck Crag that this was a moment of great risk. Of the four figures plodding toward Bandit, one was an enemy one a saboteur. Yet, what could either accomplish by striking now? Nothing! Nor while I live, he thought. Strangely enough, Richter bothered him more than the saboteur. There was a quality about the man he couldn't decipher, an armor he couldn't penetrate. It occurred to him that, outwardly at least, Richter was much like Prochaska—quiet, calm, steady. He performed the tasks assigned him without question evinced no hostility, no resentment. He was seemingly oblivious to Nagel's barbs and LarkwelTs occasional surly rebuffs. On the face of the record he was an asset—a work horse who performed far more labor than Nagel.

  He decided he couldn't write the German off as a factor to be continually weighed—weighed and watched. He was no ordinary man. Of that he was sure, fuehrer's presence on the enemy's first moon rocket was ample testimony of his stature. What were his thoughts? His plans? What fires burned behind his placid countenance? Crag wished he knew. One thing was certain. He could never lower his guard. Not for a second.

  He sighed and turned away from the viewport. A lot of data had piled up. He'd give Alpine a Utile work to do to get Gotch off his neck. He reached for the communicator thinking of Ann. Probably got someone else lined up by now, he thought sourly.

  Work on Bandit progressed slowly. Nagel dragged through each successive work shift on the verge of exhaustion. Crag expected him to coDapse momentarily. His disintegration took him further and further from the group. He ate silentiy, with eyes averted. He didn't protest the arduous hours, but the amount of work he performed was negligible. Larkwell maintained his stamina but had become more quiet in the process. 'He seldom smiled . never joked. Occasionally he was truculent or derisive, referring to Bandit as the "Commander's hot box."

  Richter remained impersonal and aloof, but performed his assigned tasks without apparent resentment. Crag noticed that he stayed as far from Larkwell as possible, perhaps fearing violence from the burly construction boss. Prochaska, alone, maintained a cheerful exterior—for which Crag was thankful.

  He was watching them now—the evening of the last day of LarkweD's three-day estimate—returning from the Bandit. The four figures were strung out over half a mile. He regarded that as a bad omen. They no longer worked as a crew, but as separate individuals, each in his separate world, with exception of Prochaska. He turned away from the port with the familiar feeling that time was running out, and mentally reviewed what remained to be done.

  Making Bandit habitable was a must There still remained the arduous task of transferring their belongings and gear to Bandit. Drone Baker had to be toppled and her cargo salvaged. Then there was Drone Charlie, at present just a minute speck somewhere in the great void between earth and her moon; but in somewhat less than forty-eight hours it would represent tons of metal hurtling over the rim of Arzachel. This time they couldn't fumble the balk The building of the airlock in the rill loomed in the immediate future —an oppressive shadow that caused him no end of worry. There were other problems, too—like the item of Red Dog . . the possible battle for control of the moon.

  Red Dog, in particular, had become the prime shadow darkening Arzachei's ashy plains. He thought about the emotional deterioration which had laid an iron grip over the expedition and wondered if they could hang on through the rough days ahead. All in all, the task of colonizing the moon appeared an extremely formidable one. He shook off his apprehensions and began planning his next step.

  That evening Crag knocked off the usual three hour work period following evening chow. Nagel tumbled onto his pad and was asleep almost instantly. His breathing was a harsh rasp. At Crag's suggestion Prochaska took the watch until midnight. Crag stood guard the remainder of the night to allow Nagel and Larkwell a full night's rest.

  While the others slept, Crag brooded at the port. Once he ran his hand over his face, surprised at the hardness. All bone and no flesh, he thought. He looked toward the north wall of Arzachel.

  In a few short hours Drone Charlie would come blazing over the rim, and Red Dog snapping at its heels.

  CHAPTER 14

  "ADAM CRAG was not a Cod-fearing man," the minister stated. His tone implied that Crag had been just the opposite. "Not a bit like his parents. The best family guidance in the world, yet he quit Sunday school almost before he got started. I doubt that he's-ever been to church since."

  'He looked archly at the agent. "Perhaps a godless world like the moon is just retribution.''

  A garage mechanic, a junk dealer and the proprietor of a tool shop had a lot to say about Adam-Crag. So did the owner of a small private airport. They remembered him as a boy with an insatiable appetite for tearing cars apart and converting them to what the junk dealer termed "supersonic jalopies."

  Many people in El Cajon remembered Adam Crag. Strangely enough, his teachers all the way back through grade school had little difficulty in recalling his antics and attitudes. An elementary teacher explained it by
saying, "He was that kind of a boy."

  The family doctor had the most to say about Adam. He had long since retired, a placid seventyish man who had elected to pass his last years in the same house, in an older section of the town, in which he'd been born.

  He sat swinging and talking, reminiscing about "the growing up of young Adam," as he put it. The agent had made himself at home on the front steps, listening. The doctor's comments were little short of being an eulogy.

  He finished and was silent, tapping a black briar pipe against his hand while he contemplated the agent with eyes which had long since ceased to see.

  "One other thing," he added finally. "Adam was sure a heller with the girls."

  The agent started to comment that Crag's dossier looked like the roll call of a girl's dormitory but refrained. He didn't want to prejudice the testimony.

  Zero hour on the plains of ArzacheL The sun, an intolerably brilliant ball pasted against the ebony sky, had started its drop toward the horizon. The shadows on the plain were lengthening, harbingers of the bitter two-weeks-long night to come. They crept out from the sheer wall of the crater^reaching to engulf Pickering Base with icy fingers.

  Crag and Prochaska were alone, now, in the stripped cabin of the Aztec. Nagel and Richter, under Larkwell's command, had departed for Bandit an hour earlier with the last of their supplies. Crag disliked splitting the crew but saw no alternative. He had to gamble. The element of certainty, the ability to predict, the expectations of logic—all these had vanished, swept away by the vagaries of chance. They could do only so much. Beyond that their fate was pawn to the chaotic cross fires of human elements pitted against the architecture of the cosmos. They were puppets in the last lottery of probability.

  Frochaska broke the silence: It's going to be close."