Danger Moon

2

THEY PUT on their pressure suits and stepped out of the lock onto the hard rock outside. Culver gestured and led the way to a small crater-hopping rocket parked a few hundred yards from the Dome. It was still eight days till sunrise, and overhead hung the wide, solemn disk of the Earth, bright enough to read by, big as a huge, drifting balloon.

Mount Hadley is thrust into the dry Sea of Serenity like an arrowhead piercing a heart. Like all the Moon’s surface it is bare rock, and the tumbled mountain ranges that lie behind it are like nothing on the face of the Earth. Templin stared around curiously, remembering how it had seemed when that first adventuring flight had landed there. Then he loped over the pitted rock after Culver’s swollen pressure suit.

Culver touched a key ring inset in the rocket’s airlock, and the door swung open. They scrambled aboard, closed the outer door, and Culver touched a valve that flooded the lock with air. Then they opened the inner door and took off their pressure suits.

Culver said, “The Terralune mine is up at Hyginus Cleft, about four hundred miles south of here. We’ll make it in twenty minutes or so.”

Templin sat down in one of the bucket seats before the dual controls. Culver followed more slowly, strapping himself in before he reached for the jet control levers.

His ship was a little two-ton affair, especially designed for use on the surface of the Moon; powered with chemical fuel, instead of the giant atomics on larger ships, it could carry two persons and a few hundred pounds of cargo—and that was all.

He fed fuel to the tiny jets, paused to give the evaporators a chance to warm up, then tripped the spark contact. There was a brief sputter and a roar. As he advanced the jet lever a muffled grating sound came from underneath, and there was a peculiar jolting, swaying sensation as the rocket danced around on its tail jets for a moment before taking off.

And then they were jet-borne.

Culver swept up to a thousand feet and leveled off, heading toward a huge crater on the horizon. “My first landmark,” he explained to Templin.

Templin nodded silently, staring out at the horizon. Although the sun itself was not yet visible, from their elevation it was just below the horizon curve. As they swept over a depression in the Moon’s wrinkled surface Templin caught a glimpse of unendurable brightness where the sun was; a long, creeping tongue of flame that writhed in a slow snake curl. It was the sun’s corona—a rare sight on the Earth, but always visible on the Moon, where there was no atmosphere to play tricks and blot it out.

Culver said curiously, “I didn’t know you were one of the early Moon explorers. How come you aren’t a millionaire, like the rest of them?”

Templin shrugged. “I keep on the move,” he said ambiguously. “Yes, there were plenty of deals. I could have claimed mining rights, or signed up for lecture tours, or let some rocket-transport company pay me a fat salary for the privilege of putting my name on their board of directors. But I didn’t want it. This way, Terralune pays me pretty well for scouting around the Inner Planets for them. I just put the checks in the bank, anyhow—where I spend my time, you can’t spend your money. Money doesn’t mean anything on Venus.”

Culver nodded. His fingers danced skillfully over the jet keys as the nose of the rocket wavered a hairbreadth off course. Under control, the ship came around a couple of degrees until it was again arrowing straight for its target on the horizon, hurtling over the ancient, jagged face of the Moon.

Culver said casually, “I sort of envy you, Temp. It must be a terrific feeling to see things that no man has ever seen before. I guess that’s why I came to the Moon, looking for things like that. But heaven knows, it’s getting more like Earth—and the slums of the Earth, at that—every day. Ever since they put that Dome on Mount Hadley the place has been crummy with billionaire tourists.”

Templin nodded absently. His attention was fixed on the rear-view periscope. He frowned. “Culver,” he said. “What’s that coming up behind us?”

CULVER glanced at the scope. “Oh, that. Pleasure rocket. Looks like Joe Olcott’s ship—he’s got about the biggest space-yacht around. Only his isn’t really a pleasure ship, because he pulled some political strings and got himself a vice commander’s commission in the Security Patrol, which means that his yacht rates as an auxiliary. No guns on it, of course; but the Patrol pays his fuel bills.”

“A sweet racket,” said Templin. “But what the devil is he so close for? If he doesn’t watch out he’s going to get his nose blistered. Way he’s going now he’ll be blasting right into our rocket exhaust.”

Culver stared worriedly at the periscope. The fat bullet-shaped rocket yacht behind them was getting bigger in the scope, little more than a mile behind them. Then he exhaled. “There he goes,” said Culver. The other ship swung its nose a few degrees off to the west. It was a big fast job, burning twice as much fuel as their light crater-jumper, and it slid past them not more that a quarter of a mile away, going in the same direction.

“Joe Olcott,” said Templin. “I begin to think that I’m not going to like Mr. Olcott. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like me; his jaw will be sore for a day or two to help him remember.”

Culver grinned and fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette. “He’s one of the billionaire tourists I was telling you about, Temp,” he said. He sucked on the cigarette, puffed out blue smoke which the air purifiers drew in. “Olcott’s about the worst of the bunch, I guess. Not only is he a rich man, but he’s mixed up in—Hey! What’re you doing?”

Culver squawked in surprise as Templin, swearing incandescently, dove past him to get at the jet controls. Then Culver’s eyes caught what Templin had seen a fraction of a second earlier. The big, bullet-shaped rocket had passed them, then come around in a wide arc, plunging head-on at their little ship at a good fifty-mile-a-minute clip.

Templin, sputtering oaths, was clawing at the controls. Under his frantic fingers their ship came slowly over…too slowly. The bullet-shaped ship, carrying twice their jets, came at them until it was a scant hundreds of yards away. Then it switched ends in a tight 10-gravity power turn. When the steering jets had brought it around the space-yacht’s pilot fed full power to his main-drive jets.

And deadly, white-hot gases from the rocket exhausts came flaring at Templin and Culver.

THE LITTLE ship quivered in a death-agony. Templin, white-lipped and soundless now, did the only thing left to him. He cut every jet; the crater-jumper was tossed about in the torrent of flaming gasses from the other ship and hurled aside. The Moon’s gravity drew it down and out of danger. Then Templin thrust over the main-drive jets again, checking their fall in a fierce deceleration maneuver. The impact almost blanked Culver out; for a moment dark red specks floated before his eyes. When his vision cleared, he found them settling on their jets in the middle of a five-acre rock plain that formed the center of a small crater.

Templin fought the controls until the landing-struts touched rock. Then he cut jets; the swaying, unstable motion ceased and they were grounded.

Culver shook his head dazedly. “What the devil happened?” he gasped.

“Wait!” Templin’s voice was urgent. Culver looked at him in astonishment, but held his tongue. Templin sat stock-still for a second, his bearing one of extreme concentration. Then he relaxed. “Don’t hear any escaping air,” he reported; “I guess the hull’s still in one piece.” He peered through the vision port at the black star-filled sky overhead. The long trail of rocket flame from the other ship came around in a sweeping curve that circled over them twice. Then, apparently satisfied, the other pilot straightened out. The flame trail pointed straight back the way they had come as the space-yacht picked up speed. In a moment it was out of sight.

Templin smiled a chill smile. “He thinks he got us,” he said. “Let him go on thinking so—for now.”

“Tell me what that was all about.” Culver demanded. “Two years I’ve been on the Moon, and nothing like this has ever happened to me before. What in heaven’s name was he trying to do?”

Templin looked at him mildly. “Kill us, I should think,” he said. “He came close enough to it, too.”

“But why?”

Templin shrugged. “That’s what I mean to find out. It might be because he’s the man I slugged back in the Dome—but I doubt it. Or it might be because he thinks I can put Terralnne’s mine back on its feet. Wish I shared his confidence.”

He unbuckled his safety straps and stood up. “This tub got a radio?” he demanded.

Culver, still pondering over what he had said, looked at him glassily a second. “Radio? Oh—no, of course not. Ship radios don’t work on the Moon. You should know that.”

Templin grinned. “When I was here there weren’t any other ships to radio to. Why don’t ship radios work?”

“Not enough power. It’s not like the Earth, you know—any little one-watt affair can broadcast there, because the signals bounce off the Heaviside Layer. But you can’t radio to anything on the Moon unless you can see it, because there isn’t any Heaviside Layer to reflect radio waves, and so they only go in straight lines.”

“How about the radio at the Dome?”

Culver shrugged. “That’s a big one; that one bounces off the Earth’s Heaviside Layer. What do you want a radio for, anyhow?”

“Wanted to save time,” Templin said succinctly. “No matter. Come on, we’ve got a job of inspection to do. Put on your pressure suit.”

Culver began complying automatically. “What are we going to do?”

“Make an external inspection. Way we were being kicked around up there, I want to make sure our outside hull is okay before I take this thing up again. Let’s go look.”

THE TWO men slipped into air-tight pressure suits, sealed the helmets and stepped lightly out onto the lunar surface.

Templin skirted the base of the rocket, carefully examining every visible line and marking on the metal skin with the help of a hand-light. Then he said into his helmet radio, “Looks all right, Culver. By the way, what’s that thing over there?”

He pointed to something that gleamed, ruddily metallic, at the base of the crater wall. Culver followed the direction of his arm.

“That’s a rocket-launching site,” he said. “Good place to stay away from. It’s a hangover from the Three-Day War—you know, when the boys got the idea they could conquer Earth by blasting it with atom-rockets from the Moon.”

Templin nodded. “I remember,” he said grimly. “My home town was one of the first cities wiped out. But why is it a good place to avoid?”

Culver scowled. “Wild radiations. They had a plutonium pile to generate power, and in the fighting the thing got out of control and blew its top. Scattered radioactive matter for half a mile around. Most of it’s dead now, of course—these isotopes have pretty short half-lives. But the pile’s still there.”

Templin said: “And there it can stay, for all of me. Well, let’s get moving. The ship looks intact to me—if it isn’t, we’ll find out when we put the power on.”

Culver followed him into the ship’s tiny pressure chamber. When they were able to take their helmets off he said curiously, “What’s your next move, Temp? Going to get after Olcott?”

“That I don’t know yet. One thing is for sure—that was no accident that just happened; he really wanted to blast us. And he had the stuff to do it with, too, with that baby battleship he was flying. It wasn’t his fault that we ducked and only got a little dose of the tail end of his rocket blast… Get in the driver’s seat, Culver. The sooner we get to the mine, the sooner the next round starts!”

THREE HOURS later, Templin was down in the mine galleries at Hyginus Cleft, staring disgruntledly at the wreck of a Mark VII digging machine. This was Gallery Eight, richest vein of uranium ore they had found; just when the Mark VII had really begun to turn out sizeable amounts of metal there had been a shift in the rock underneath, crumbling the supports and bringing the shaft’s ceiling down to pin the machine. Now the Mark VII, looking like a giant, steel-clad bug on its glittering caterpillar treads, was just half a million dollar’s worth of junk.

Culver told him, “Tim Anson, here, was running the machine when the cave-in started; he can tell you all about it.”

Templin looked at the man Culver had indicated, a short space-suited figure whose face was hidden behind an opaque mask. The mines were worked in vacuum, of course; it would have been impossible to keep the shafts filled with air. And the dangerous radiations present in the uranium ore required a special helmet for all who stayed long within range of them—a plastic material that transmitted light and other harmless rays in only one direction; dangerous rays it did not transmit at all. Templin said, “What about it, Anson? What happened?”

The man’s voice came into his helmet radio. “There’s nothing much to tell, sir,” it said. “We opened this shaft ’bout a week ago and got some very pretty samples out of it. So we put the Mark Seven in, and I was on it when all of a sudden it began to shake. I thought the machine had gone haywire somehow, so I shut it off. But the shaking kept up, so I hopped off and beat it toward the escape corridor. And then the roof came down. Good thing I was off it, too; smashed the driver’s seat like a tin toy.”

Templin scowled. “Don’t you survey these galleries?” he demanded of Culver. “If there was a rock fault underneath, why didn’t you find out about it before you brought the Mark Seven down?”

Culver spread his hands. “Believe it or not, Temp, we surveyed. There wasn’t any fault.”

Templin glared at him. Before he could speak, though, a new voice said tentatively, “Mr. Templin? Message from the radio room.” It was another miner holding a sheet of thin paper in his gauntleted hand. Templin took the flimsy from him and held it up to his faceplate. In the light of the helmet lamp he read:

Pilot Rocket Silvanus registry Joseph Olcott reported accident as required by Regulations. Report stated your Rocket not seen until collision almost inevitable then evasive action taken but impossible to avoid rocket exhaust striking your ship. Pilot reprimanded and cautioned. Signed: Stephens, HQ Lunadmin Tycho Crater.

Templin grinned leanly and passed the radio from Lunar Administration over to Jim Culver. “I squawked to Tycho about our little brush with Olcott,” he explained.

Culver read it quickly and his face darkened with anger. Templin said over the inter-suit radio: “Don’t get excited, Culver—I didn’t expect anything better. After all, it stood to reason that Olcott would report it as an accident. He had to, in case we survived. At least, now we know where we stand.” He glanced around the mine gallery, then frowned again. “I’ve seen enough,” he said abruptly. “Let’s go upstairs again.”

Culver nodded and they walked back to the waiting monorail ore car. They stepped in, pressed the release button and the tiny wheels spun round. The car picked up speed rapidly; half a minute later it slowed and stopped at the entrance to the shaft. They crossed an open space, then walked into the air lock of the pressurized structure where Terralune’s miners lived.

IN THE office Templin stripped off his pressure suit and immediately grabbed for one of his cigarettes. Culver more slowly followed his example, then sat down facing Templin. “You’ve seen the picture now, Temp,” he said. “Do you have any ideas on what we can do?”

Templin grimaced. “In a negative sort of way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, up to a little while ago I had a pretty definite idea that it was Joe Olcott who was causing all our trouble. That, I figured, I could handle—in fact, you might say I was sort of looking forward to it. But, although Olcott is a rich and powerful man and all that, I don’t see how he can cause earthquakes.”

Culver nodded. “That’s it,” he said soberly. “That’s not the first time it’s happened, either. We’ve had other kinds of trouble—broken machinery, mistakes in judgement, that sort of thing. Like you, I thought Olcott might be behind it. But—well, good Lord, Temp. The Moon is an old, old planet. There isn’t even any internal heat any more—it’s all cooled off, and you’d think that its crust would have finally settled by this time. And yet… earthquakes keep on happening. Five of them so far.”

Templin grunted and chucked away his cigarette. “Get the straw-bosses in here,” he said. “Let’s have ourselves a conference; maybe somebody will come up with an idea.”

Culver flicked on a communicator and spoke into it briefly. He made four or five calls to different stations on the intercom set, then turned it off. “They’ll all be here in about five minutes,” he reported,

“Okay,” said Templin. He pointed to a map on the wall behind Culver. “What’s that?” he asked.

Culver turned. “That’s the mine and environs, Temp. Right here—” he placed his finger on the map—“is the living quarters and administration building, where we are. Here’s the entrance to the shafts. Power plant—that’s where the solar collectors are. You know we pick up sunlight on parabolic mirrors, focus it on a heat exchanger and use it to generate electricity. This over here is the oxygen plant.”

“You mean, we make our own oxygen?”

“Well, sort of. There’s a lot of quartz on the Moon’s surface, and that’s silicon dioxide, as you ought to know. We electrolyze it and snatch out the oxygen.”

Templin nodded. “What about this marking up on top of the map?”

Culver grinned. “That’s our pride and joy here, Temp. It’s an old Loonie city. Heaven knows how old—it’s all run down into the ground now. Must be a million years old, maybe, but nobody knows for sure. But the Lunarians, whoever they were, really built for keeps—some of the buildings are still standing. Want to go over and take a look at it later?”

Templin hesitated. “No, not today,” he said regretfully. “That’s pleasure, and pleasure comes later.”

There was a knock on the door. Culver yelled, “Come in,” and it opened. A middle-aged, worried-looking man came in.

Culver introduced him. “Sam Bligh,” he said; “Sam’s our power engineer.”

Templin shook hands with Bligh, then with half a dozen other men who followed him through the door. When all were gathered he stood up and spoke to them.

“My name’s Templin,” he said. “I’m going to be running this project for a while. I didn’t ask for the job, and I don’t want it, but I seem to be stuck with it. The sooner we begin producing, the sooner you’ll get rid of me.” He looked around. “Now, one at a time,” he said. “I want to hear your troubles…”

The conference lasted about an hour. Then Templin said his piece. “There’s going to be some ore brought out in the next twenty-four hours,” he said. “I don’t care what we have to do to do it, but we are going to ship at least one shipload of the stuff this week. And two shiploads next week, and three the week after, until we’re up to quota. That clear?” He looked around the room. The men in it nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get going.”