Danger Moon

4

THE LIEUTENANT closed the door behind his superior officer and marched up to Templin. He dropped an ethergram form on Templin’s desk. “My inspection orders,” he said crisply. “Better look them over and see they’re all right. I take it that you’re the new boss around here.”

Templin took his eyes off Olcott with difficulty. To the lieutenant he said non-committally, “I run the mine, yes. Name’s Templin. This is Jim Culver, works superintendent.”

The lieutenant relaxed a shade. “We’ve met,” he acknowledged, nodding to Culver. “I’m Lieutenant Carmer, and this is Commander Olcott.”

Templin said drily, “I’ve met Mr. Olcott. Twice—although somewhat informally.”

Olcott growled, “Never mind that; we’re here on business.”

“What sort of business?”

The lieutenant said hesitantly, “There has been a complaint made against you, Mr. Templin—a report of a violation of security regulations.”

“Violation? What violation?” Templin reached casually for another cigarette as he spoke, but his senses were alert. This was the man with whom he had had trouble twice before; it looked like a third dose was in the offing.

Cramer looked at Joe Olcott before he spoke. “Plutonium, Mr. Templin,” he said.

Culver coughed spasmodically. Templin said, “I see. Well, of course you can’t take any chances, Lieutenant. Absurd as it is, you’d better investigate the report.” To Culver he said: “Go up to the quarters and pick out two guides for them, Culver. They’ll want to see our whole layout here; maybe you’d better go along too.”

Culver nodded, his face full of trouble. “Okay, Temp,” he said dismally, and went out.

Templin picked up the ether-grammed orders and read them carefully, stalling for time. They said nothing but what he already knew; they were typical military orders authorizing a party of two officers to inspect the Terralune Projects mine at Hyginus Cleft. He put it down carefully.

He got up. “Excuse me for a while,” he said. “Culver will take care of you, and I’ve got a load of ore coming out to check. If you have any questions, I’ll see you before you leave.”

Olcott guffawed abruptly. “You bet you will,” he sniggered, but he caught Templin’s mild eyes and the laughter went out of him. “Go ahead,” he said. “We’ll see you, all right.”

Templin took his time about leaving. At the door he said, “There are cigarettes on the desk; help yourselves.” Then he closed the door gently behind him…and at once was galvanized into action. He raced to the metal climbing pole to the quarters on the upper level, swarmed up it at top speed and bounded down the galleyway, looking for Culver. He found Culver and two miners coming out of one of the rooms; he stopped them, took Culver aside.

“I need half an hour,” he said. “Can you keep them away from the pile that long? After that—I’ll be ready.”

Culver said hesitantly, “I guess so. But what’s the deal, Temp?”

“You’ll find out,” Templin promised. “Get going!”

TEMPLIN took three men and got them into pressure suits in a hurry. They didn’t even take time to pump air out of the pressure chamber; as soon as the inner door was sealed, Templin slammed down the emergency release and the outer door popped open. The four of them were almost blasted out of the lock by the sudden rush of air under normal pressure expanding into the vacuum outside. It was a waste of precious oxygen—but Templin was in a hurry.

The stars outside were incandescent pin-points in the ebony sky. Off to the west the tops of the mountains were blinding bright in the sun, but it was still night at the mine and the huge Earth hung in the sky overhead.

They leaped across the jagged rock, heading toward the abandoned shaft in which lay the plutonium pile Templin had stolen. As they passed the gleaming mirrors of the solar-energy collectors Templin glanced at them and swore to himself. Without the pile’s power to recharge their power-packs they were dependent on the feeble trickle of Earthshine for all their power—far less than the elaborate power-thirsty equipment of the mine needed. But there was no help for it. Perhaps, when Olcott and the security lieutenant had gone, they could revive the pile again and resume mining operations; until then, there would be no power, and mining operations would stop.

Hastily he set two of the men to digging up and rechanneling the leads to the power dome. Templin and the other man scuttled down into the yawning black shaft.

In the darting light of his helmet lamp he stared around, calculating the risks for the job in hand. The pile had to be concealed; the only way to conceal it was to blast the mouth of the tunnel shut. The pile itself was made of sturdy stuff; of course, with its ray-proof shielding and solid construction. But certainly operation of the pile would have to stop while Olcott and the lieutenant were in the vicinity, for the tiny portable Geiger counters they carried would surely detect the presence of a working atomic pile, no matter how thick and thorough the shielding.

And once a plutonium pile was stopped, it took hours to coax the nuclear reaction back to life. Any attempt to do it in a hurry would mean—atomic explosion.

Templin signaled to the workman, not daring to use his radio, and the two of them tackled the cadmium-metal dampers that protruded from the squat bulk of the pile. Thrust in as far as they would go, they soaked up the flow of neutrons; slowing down the atomic reaction until, like a forest fire cooled by cascading rain, the raging atomic fires flickered and went out. The reaction was stopped. The spinning gas-turbines of the heat-exchanger slowed and halted; the current generator stopped revolving. The atomic pile was dead.

On the surface, Templin knew, the current supply for the whole mining area was being shifted to the solar-energy reserves. The lights would flicker a little; then, as the automatic selector switches tapped the power packs, they would go back on—a little dimmer, no doubt.

Templin groaned regretfully and gestured to the other miner, who was throwing a heavy sheet-metal hook over the exposed moving parts of the generator. They hurried up and out to the surface.

Templin pulled a detonation-bomb from the cluster he had hung at his waist and, carefully gauging the distance, tossed it down the shaft. It struck a wall, rolled a dozen yards.

Then Templin flung himself away from the mouth of the shaft, dragging the other man with him. The bomb went off.

There was a flare of light and through the soles of their spacemen’s boots they felt the vibration, but there was no sound. Templin saw a flat area of rock bulge noiselessly upwaud, then collapse. The entrance was sealed.

Grim-faced, Templin turned to await the coming of the inspection party. He had done all that could be done.

A MINER, apparently one of the two who had been relocating the power leads, was standing nearby. Templin said curtly into the radio, “If you’re finished, get back to the quarters.” The man hesitated, then waved and moved slowly off.

Looking at the lights of the mine buildings, Templin could see that they were less bright now than before. Around the buildings small clusters of tinier lights were moving—the helmet lamps of pressure-suited men.

Looking close, Templin saw that three of the smaller lights were coming toward him—Culver, Olcott and the security lieutenant, he was sure. He gestured to his helper to keep out of sight and, in great swooping strides, he bounded toward the three lights.

As he got closer he could see them fairly clearly in the reddish light reflected from Earth overhead. They were the three he had expected, sure enough; they wore the clear, transparent helmets of surface Moon-dwellers, not the cloudy ray-opaque shields of the miners. He greeted them through his radio as casually as he could. “Find any plutonium?” he inquired amiably.

Even in the dim light he could see Olcott’s face contort in a snarl.

“You know damn well we didn’t,” said Olcott. “But I know it’s here; if I didn’t have to be in Hadley Dome in two hours I’d stay right here until I found it!”

Templin spread his hands. “Next time, bring your lunch,” he said.

The lieutenant spoke up. “We felt blasting going on, Templin,” he said. “What was it?”

“Opening a shaft,” Templin explained carefully; “we’re in the mining business here, you know.”

Olcott said, “Never mind that. Where are you getting your power?”

Templin looked at him curiously. “Solar radiation,” he said. “Where else?”

“Liar!” spat Olcott. “You know that your sun-generators broke down! You don’t have enough reserves to carry you through the night—” He broke off as he caught Templin’s eye.

“Yes,” said Templin softly, “I know we don’t have enough reserves. But tell me, how did you know it?”

Olcott hesitated. Then, aggressively, “We—the Security Patrol has its ways of finding things out,” he said. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’ve been tracing your power lines out from the mine; if they end in solar generators, I’ll admit we were wrong. I’m betting they end in a plutonium pile.”

Templin nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s follow the lines.”

OCOTT’S rage when they came to the banks of light-gathering mirrors and photocells knew no bounds. “What the devil, Templin,” he raged. “What are you trying to put over on us? Look at your power gauges—you haven’t enough juice left there to electrocute a fly! Your reserves are way down—the only intake is a couple of hundred amps from the reflected Earthshine—and you’re trying to make us think you run the whole mine on it!”

Templin shrugged. “We’re very economical of power,” he said. “Go around turning lights out after us, and that sort of thing.”

The lieutenant had the misfortune to chuckle. Olcott turned on him, anger shining on his face. Templin stood back to watch the fireworks. Then…Olcott seemed, all of a sudden, to calm down.

He glanced at one of the miners, who had come up to join them, then at Templin. He pointed to the spot where Templin had just touched off the blast concealing the pile.

“What’s over there?” he demanded triumphantly.

Templin froze. “Over where?” he stalled; but he knew it was a waste of time.

“Under that blasted rock,” crowed Olcott. “You know what I’m talking about! Where you just blasted in the tunnel over your contraband plute pile!”

Templin, dazed and incredulous, stumbled back a step. How had Olcott stumbled on the secret? Templin could have sworn that a moment ago Olcott was completely in the dark—and yet—

Olcott snarled to the lieutenant, “Arrest that man! He’s got a plutonium pile going in violation of security regulations!”

Hesitantly the lieutenant looked at his superior officer, then at Templin. He stepped tentatively toward Templin, arm outstretched to grab him…

Templin took a lightning-swift split-second to make up his mind, then he acted. He was between the other three men and the mine buildings. Beyond them was the Moon, millions of square miles of desolation. It was his only chance.

Templin plunged through the group, catching them by surprise and scattering them like giant slow-motion ninepins. Leaning far forward to get the maximum thrust and speed from his feet, he raced ahead, spanning twenty-foot pits and crevasses, heading for a crater edge where the rocks were particularly jagged and contorted. He was a hundred yards away, and going fast, before the three men could recover from their astonishment.

Then the first explosion blossomed soundlessly on a jagged precipice to his right.

It was the lieutenant’s rocket pistol, for Olcott had none of his own—but Templin knew that it was the fat man’s hand that was firing at him. Templin zigzagged frantically. Soundless explosions burst around him, but Olcott’s aim was poor, and he wasn’t touched.

Then Templin was behind the crater wall. He crashed into a rock outcrop with a jolt that sent him reeling and made him fear, for a second, that he had punctured the air-tightness of his helmet. But he hurried on, ran lightly for a hundred yards parallel to the wall, found a jet-black shadow at the base of a monolith of rock and crouched there, waiting.

There was no hiss of escaping air; his suit was still intact. After a moment he saw the lights of two men crossing the crater wall. They bobbed around for long minutes, searching for Templin. But there was too much of the Moon, too many sheltering hollows and impenetrable darknesses. After a bit they turned and went back toward the mine.

Templin gave them an extra five minutes for good measure. Then he cautiously crawled out of his hiding place and peered over the ridge.

No one was in sight, all the way to the mine buildings. He watched the lights of the buildings for a while, his face drawn with worry. The events of the last few moments had happened too rapidly to give him a chance to realize how bad a spot he was in. Now it was all coming to him. He had made a desperate gamble when he took the plutonium pile—and lost.

He stood there for several minutes, thinking out his position and what he had to do.

Then he saw something that gave him an answer to one of his problems, at least.

There was a sudden swelling burst of ruddy light that bloomed beyond the mine buildings, in the flat place where rocket ships landed. It got brighter, became white, then rose and lengthened into a sharp-pointed plume that climbed toward the tiny, bright stars overhead. It was the drive-jet off a rocket, taking off. Templin watched the flame level off, hurtle along at top speed in the direction of Tycho Crater.

It was the jet that had brought Olcott and the lieutenant, Templin was sure. They were going—but they would be back.

He hadn’t much time. And he had a lot to do.

TAKING NO chances Templin kept in the cover of the jagged rocks as he approached the dome. A few hundred yards from it he saw a pressure-suited figure moving toward him. He stood motionless in indecision for a moment, until he saw that the helmet on the figure was milkily opaque. A miner’s helmet.

Templin stood up and beckoned to the figure. When it was within a few yards he said, “Have the Security Patrol officers gone?”

The miner stopped. Templin was conscious of invisible eyes regarding him through the one-way vision of the helmet. Then he heard a voice say: “Oh, it’s you, Templin. I was wondering where you were.”

Templin thought that there was something curious about the voice—not an accent, but a definite peculiarity of speech that he couldn’t recognize. Almost as though the man were speaking a foreign language—

Templin glanced toward the dome and dismissed the thought. Someone was coming toward them; he had to make sure of his ground. He asked, “That rocket I saw—was that the Security Patrol? Have they both gone?”

“Yes.”

“Fine!” Templin exulted. “Where’s Culver, then?”

The figure in the space-suit gestured. Templin, following the pointing arm, saw the man who was coming toward them. “Thanks,” he said, and raced to meet Culver, who was quartering off toward the power plant. Templin intercepted him only a short distance from the main building.

“Culver,” he said urgently, “come into the dome. I’ve not got much time, so I’ve got to move fast. When Olcott and—He broke off, staring. Culver was looking at him, his expression visibly puzzled even in the twilight, his mouth moving but no sound coming over the radio.

“What’s the matter?” Templin demanded. Culver just stared. “Ahh,” growled Templin, “your radio is broken. Come on!” He half-dragged Culver the remaining short distance to the dome. They climbed into the airlock, Templin closed the outer pressure doors and touched the valve that flooded the chamber with air. Before they were out of the lock Templin had his helmet off, was motioning to Culver to do likewise.

“What the devil was the matter with your radio?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” said Culver in surprise. “It’s yours that doesn’t work.”

“Well—never mind. Anyway, what happened to Olcott?”

“Took off for Tycho. Gone for a posse to hunt for you, I guess.”

“Why didn’t they radio for help?”

Culver grinned a little self-consciously. “That was me,” he explained. “I—I told them we didn’t have enough juice to run the radio. They didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything they could do. We don’t have very much power, and that’s a fact.”

Templin laughed. “Good boy,” he said. “All right. Here’s what I want to do. Olcott said he was going to Hadley Dome. I want to be there when he gets there. I think it’s time for a showdown.”

Culver looked forlorn, but all he said was, “I’ll get a rocket ready.” He went to the teletone in the anteroom, gave orders to the ground crew of the rockets. To Templin he said, “Let’s go outside.”

Templin nodded and got ready to put his helmet back on. As he was lifting it over his head something caught his eye.

“What the devil!” he said. “Hey, Culver. Take a look.”

Culver looked. At the base of the helmet was a metal lug to which was fastened one of the radio leads. But the lug was snapped off clean; bright metal showed where it had connected with the helmet itself. The radio was broken.

Culver said in self-satisfaction, “Told you so, Temp; it was broken before, when I tried to talk to you outside.”

Templin said thoughtfully, “Maybe so. Might have broken when I ran into that rock out at the crater—no! It couldn’t have been broken. I was talking to a miner over it just before I met you.”

“What miner?”

Templin stared at him. “Why, the one who left the building just before you did.”

Culver shook his head. “Look, Temp,” he said. “I had all hands in here when Olcott and the lieutenant took off. And I was the first one out of the place afterwards. There wasn’t any miner.”

TEMPLIN STOOD rooted in astonishment for a moment. Then he blinked. “I talked to somebody,” he growled. “Listen, I’ve got twenty minutes or so before I have to take off. Let’s go out and take a look for this miner!”

Culver answered by reaching for a suit. Templin picked another helmet with radio tap intact and put it on; they trotted into the pressure lock and let themselves out the other side.

Templin waved. “That’s where I saw him.” But there was no sign of the “miner”.

Templin led off toward where the pressure-suited figure had seemed to be heading, out toward the old Loonie city. They scoured the jagged Moonscape, separating to the limit of their radio-contact range, investigating every peak and crater.

Then Culver’s voice crackled in Templin’s ear. “Look out there!” it said. “At the base of that rock pyramid!”

Templin looked. His heart gave a bound. Something was moving, something that glinted metallically and jogged in erratic fashion across the rock, going away from them.

“That’s it!” said Templin. “It’s heading toward the Loonie city. Come on—maybe we can head him off!”

The thing went out of sight behind an outcropping of rock, and Templin and Culver raced toward it. It was a good quarter mile away, right at the fringe of the Loonie city itself. It took them precious minutes to get there, more minutes before they found what they sought.

Then Templin saw it, lying on the naked rock. “Culver!” he whooped. “Got it!”

They approached cautiously. The figure lay motionless, face down at the entrance to one of the deserted moon warrens.

Templin snarled angrily, “Okay, whoever you are! Get up and start answering questions!”

There was no movement from the figure. After a second Culver leaned over to inspect it, then glanced puzzledly at Templin. “Dead?” he ventured.

Templin scowled and thrust a foot under the space-suit, heaved on it to roll it over.

To his surprise, the force of his thrust sent the thing flying into the air like a football at the kick. Its lightness was incredible. They stared at it open-mouthed as it floated in a high parabola. As it came down they raced to it, picked it up.

The helmet fell off as they were handling it. Culver gasped in wonder.

There was no one in the suit!

Templin said, “Good lord, Culver, he—he took the suit off! But there isn’t any air. He would have died!”

Culver nodded soberly. “Temp,” he said in an awed voice, “just what do you suppose was wearing that suit?”