Back Aa

First on the Moon

<h2>CHAPTER 14</h2> "Adam Crag was not a God-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. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> 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. Prochaska broke the silence: "It's going to be close." Crag's eyes remained riveted to the instruments. Drone Charlie and Red Dog were plunging through space separated by a scant half-hour's flight time. Despite the drone's long launch lead, the gap between the two rockets had been narrowed to a perilous point. Drone Charlie was decelerating rapidly, her braking rockets flaring spasmodically to slow her headlong flight. "We'd better get into our suits," Crag said finally. "We want to get out of this baby the second Charlie lets down." Prochaska nodded. They left their suits unpressurized for the time being to allow full mobility. In the moments ahead Prochaska, in particular, couldn't afford to be hampered by the rigidity the suit possessed when under pressure. They turned back to the control panel. Charlie was hurtling over Alphons, dropping toward the bleak lunar landscape with incredible speed. The mechanical voice from Alpine droned a stream of data. There was a rapid exchange of information between Prochaska and Alpine. At its conclusion he began taking over control of the drone. Crag watched tensely. Prochaska's fingers, even though encased in the heavy suit material, moved with certainty. In a little while he spoke without looking up. "Got it," he said laconically. He studied the instruments, then his fingers sought the buttons controlling Charlie's forward braking rockets. Crag thought: This is it. Within scant moments the drone had covered the sky over the tangled land lying between Alphons and Arzachel. It swept over the brimming cliffs at a scant two thousand feet. He saw the rocket through the forward ports. White vapor flared from its nose rockets. The Chief had it under full deceleration. The cloud of vapor covered its body. Prochaska moved the steering control and the rocket slanted upward at ever-increasing angle of climb. Crag strained his neck to keep it in sight. He thought its rate of climb was too rapid but Prochaska seemed unperturbed. His calm approach to the problem of landing the drone gave Crag renewed confidence. All at once, it seemed, Drone Charlie was hanging high in the sky, a tapered needle miraculously suspended in the heavens. Then it began dropping ... dropping. Bursts of smoke and white vapor shot from its tail jets, becoming continuous as the rocket hurtled toward the plain. The drone was lost to sight in its own clouds, but he charted its progress by the vapor spurts at its lower edge. Prochaska was draining the tail braking jets of every ounce of energy. Suddenly the rocket gave the illusion of hanging in mid-air. The gap between it and the stark terrain below seemed to have stopped closing. Crag half expected the blasting stern tubes to begin pushing the drone back into the sky. But ... no! It was moving down again, slowly. Prochaska moved another control. A servo-mechanism within the rocket stirred to life and a spidery metal network moved out from its tail housing. The drone dropped steadily, ever slower, and finally settled. The shock-absorbing frame folded, was crushed. At the same instant Prochaska silenced its rockets. It settled down, its tail tubes pushed into the plain's powdery ash scarcely a mile from the Aztec. "Perfect." Prochaska sounded pleased with himself. His thin face broke into a satisfied smile. "Nice going," Crag agreed. "Now let's get out of this trap." His eyes lingered for an instant on the analog. Red Dog had already cleared Ptolemaeus. He snapped his face plate shut, clicked on the interphone and turned the oxygen valve. His suit began to swell and grow rigid against his body. When they were pressurized, he opened the hatch and they clambered out onto the plain. He closed the hatch behind them and struck off in the direction of Bandit with the Chief at his heels. They moved as rapidly as possible. Their feet in the heavy insulated space boots kicked up small fountains of dust which dropped as quickly as they rose. From time to time Crag looked back toward the brimming cliffs. Prochaska plodded head down. His quickened breathing in the interphones sounded harsh to Crag. Plainly the long hours of monitoring the Aztec's instruments had made him soft. The microphone in his helmet came to life. It was Larkwell. "Red Dog's cleared the rim," he told them. Crag glanced back. His eyes caught the wispish trail of white vapor high above the cliffs before he saw the rocket itself. It was already in vertical attitude, letting down amid a cloud of white vapor from its stern braking rockets. "All hands disconnect their interphones," he commanded. "From here on out we operate in silence." The Red Dog interphone system might or might not be on the same band they used. He wasn't about to take that risk. "Okay," Larkwell acknowledged. "We're shutting off." Crag remembered that the German's interphones were still connected. Slip one. He decided to leave his own open—at least he'd be forewarned if anyone tried to alert the Red Dog crew. He turned back toward the rocket. Red Dog was dropping about two or three miles from the Aztec in the direction of the wrecked Baker. White smoke and flame poured from its stern tubes. It slowed visibly as it neared the lunar surface. He thought that a plumb bob dropped through the long axis of the rocket would form a right angle with the surface of Arzachel. Pilot's good, he thought. He watched until it touched down teetering on its stern tubes for a moment before coming to rest; then he turned and hurried to overtake Prochaska. The Chief's face behind his mask was covered with perspiration. He panted heavily. Crag beckoned him to follow and moved behind a low swale of rock where they would be safe from detection. The nose of Bandit jutted into the sky about a mile ahead of them. He motioned toward it, gesturing for Prochaska to go on. The Chief nodded understanding and struck off. Crag turned and began climbing a low rocky ridge that now lay between him and Red Dog. He stopped just below its crest and searched for a safe vantage point. To his right a serrated rock structure extended up over the backbone of the ridge. He angled toward it, then followed the outcropping to a point where he could see the plain beyond. Red Dog had its tail planted in the ash about three miles distant. Minute figures milled at its base, small blobs of movement against the crater floor. No sounds broke the silence of Crag's open interphones. He took this as a sign that the Red Dog sets operated on a different band. But he couldn't be sure. The tremendous advantage of having communication with his own men must be discarded. His vigil was rewarded a few moments later when the blobs around Red Dog's base began moving in the direction of the Aztec. It struck him that they couldn't see the rocket from their present position due to small intervening hillocks, although both Baker and Charlie were clearly visible. He decided the Aztec's horizontal position had tipped them to its identity while they were still space-borne. One of the Red Dog crewmen, obviously the leader, drew ahead of his companions. The other two seemed to be struggling with some object they carried between them. They moved close together, halting from time to time. He returned his gaze to the rocket, conjecturing that another crewman would have remained behind. If so, he was in the space cabin. The ship seemed lifeless. The landing party approached a small ridge overlooking the Aztec, bringing them closer to his lookout. He saw that the two men following the leader were having difficulty with their burden. They walked slowly, uncertainly, pausing from time to time. The lead man started up the rocky knoll overlooking the Aztec. His movements were slow, wary. He crouched near the top of the ridge, scanning the plain beyond before waving to his companions to follow. The gesture told Crag that their interphones were disconnected. The crewmen near the base of the knoll started climbing, moving with extreme difficulty. He watched them, wondering, until they reached the leader. They stood for a moment scouting the plain, then two of the men crouched over the burden they had lugged up the knoll. A weapon, Crag guessed. He tried to discern its shape but failed. A few moments later one of the men stepped back. A puff of white rose from the knoll. A trail of vapor shot toward the Aztec. A portable rocket launcher! His eyes tracked the missile's flight. The vapor trail terminated at its target. An instant later the Aztec disintegrated. Black chunks of the rocket hurtled into the lunar skies, becoming lost to sight. Within seconds only a jagged few feet of broken torn metal marked the site of man's first successful landing on the moon. Wow, what a weapon, he thought. It didn't merely push a hole in the Aztec. It disintegrated it, completely. That was one for Gotch. He filed the thought away and watched. The figures on the knoll searched the scene for a long time. Finally they turned and started back, carrying the rocket launcher with them. The act of saving the weapon told him that Red Dog carried more rockets than just the single shot fired—a disconcerting thought. He cautiously withdrew from his post and picked his way down the ridge toward Bandit, moving as rapidly as the rough terrain permitted. Everything now depended on the next move of the Red Dog's crew, he thought. One thing was certain—there would be no quarter shown. The ruthless destruction of the Aztec had set the pattern for the coming battle of Arzachel. It was a declaration of war with all rules of human warfare discarded. Well, that was okay with him. He was breathing heavily by the time he reached a spot overlooking Bandit. Nagel had decompressed the cabin and they were waiting for him with the hatch open. He crossed the clearing and a moment later was in the space cabin. He watched the gauge until it was safe to cut off his suit pressure and open his face plate. He looked at Richter; his face was blank. Tersely, then, he related what had happened. "I sort of expected that," Prochaska said quietly when he had finished. "It was the logical way." "Logical to attempt to murder men?" Nagel asked bitterly. "Entirely logical," Crag interjected. "The stakes are too big for a few human lives to matter. At least we've been warned." He turned to Prochaska. "Disconnect Richter's mikes until this show's over." The Chief nodded. Richter stood quietly by while his lip microphone was disconnected and withdrawn from the helmet. Nagel's face showed satisfaction at the act, but Larkwell's expression was wooden. Crag said, "Defense of Bandit will be under Prochaska's command." He looked grimly at his second-in-command. "Your fort has one automatic rifle. Make it count if you have to use it." The Chief nodded. Larkwell spoke up, "How about you?" "I'll be scouting with the other automatic rifle. Stay in your suits and keep ready. If they start to bring up the rocket launcher I'll signal. If that happens you'll have to get out of here, pronto. You'd better check your oxygen," he added as an afterthought. "If they think we're dead ducks they won't be toting the launcher," Prochaska said. "We hope." Crag exchanged his oxygen cylinder for a fresh one, then checked one of the automatic rifles, slipping two extra clips in his belt. On second thought he hooked a spare oxygen cylinder to the back straps. He nodded to Nagel, snapped his face plate shut and pressurized his suit. When the cabin was decompressed, he opened the hatch, scanning the knoll carefully before descending to the plain. He struck off toward the ridge overlooking Red Dog. The ground on this side of the spur was fairly flat and he made good time, but was panting heavily by the time he reached his lookout point on the crest. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.