First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton (thriller books to read .TXT) 📗

appreciate it if you would try...."

Crag cursed and snapped the communicator off.

"What's wrong? The bird colonel heckling you?"

"Hounding is the word," Crag corrected. He fixed the Chief with a baleful eye and uttered an epithet with regard to the Colonel's ancestry. Prochaska chuckled.

Larkwell quickly demonstrated that he knew the Aztec inside and out far better than did any of the others. Aside from several large cables supplied expressly for the purpose of lowering the rocket, he obtained the rest of the equipment needed from the ship.

Under his direction two winches were set up about thirty yards from the ship and a cable run to each to form a V-line. A second line ran from each winch to a nearby shallow gully. Heavy weights—now useless parts of the ship's engines—were fastened to these and buried. The lines were intended to anchor the winches during the critical period of lowering the rocket. Finally Larkwell ran a guide line from the Aztec's nose to a third winch. This one was powered by an electric motor which was powered by the ship's batteries.

While Larkwell and Nagel prepared to lower the rocket Crag smoothed off an area of the plain's surface and marked off a twenty-foot square. He finished and looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. Richter's eyes were filled with interest.

"Using it to chart the frequency of meteorite falls," Crag explained. "We'd like to get an idea of the hazard."

"Plenty," Richter said succinctly. He started to add more and stopped. Crag felt the urge to pump him but refrained. The least he became involved the better, he thought. It didn't escape him that the German seemed to have recovered to a remarkable extent. Well, that was something else to remember. Richter injured was one thing. But Richter recovered ...

He snapped the thought off and turned toward the base of the rocket, indicating that the German should follow. Larkwell was testing the winches and checking the cables when they arrived.

"About ready," he told Crag.

"Then let her go."

The construction boss nodded and barked a command to Prochaska and Nagel, who were manning the restraining winches. When they acknowledged they were ready he strode to the power winch.

"Okay." His voice was a terse crack in the interphones. The Aztec shuddered on its base, teetering, then its nose began to cant downward. It moved slowly in an arc across the sky.

"Take up," Larkwell barked into the mike. The guide lines tautened.

"Okay."

This time Prochaska and Nagel fed line through the winches more slowly. The nose of the rocket had passed through sixty degrees of arc when its tail began to inch backward, biting into the plain.

"Hold up!" Larkwell circled the rocket and approached the tailfins from one side. He looked up at the body of the ship, then back at the base. Satisfied it would hold he ordered the winches started. The nose moved slowly toward the ground, swaying slightly from side to side. In another moment it lay on its belly on the plain.

"Now the real work begins," Larkwell told Crag. "We gotta clean everything out of that stovepipe and get the airlock rigged." His voice was complaining but his face indicated the importance he attached to the job.

"How long do you figure it'll take?"

Larkwell rubbed his faceplate thoughtfully. "About two days, with some catnaps and some help."

"Good." Crag looked thoughtfully at Richter. "Any reason you can't help?" he asked sharply.

"None at all," Richter answered solemnly.

While Larkwell and Nagel labored in the tail section, Crag and Prochaska rearranged the space cabin. The chemical commode was placed in one corner and a nylon curtain rigged around it—their one concession to civilization. Crag was conscious of Richter's eyes following them—weighing, analyzing, speculating. He caught himself swiveling around at odd times to check on him, but Richter seemed unconcerned.

Electric power from the batteries was limited. For the most part they would be living on space rations—food concentrates supplemented with vitamin pills—and a square of chocolate daily per man. Later, when the airlock was installed in the area now occupied by the afterburners and machinery, they would be able to appreciably extend their living quarters. Until then, Crag thought wryly, they would live like sardines—with an enemy in their midst. An enemy and a saboteur, he mentally corrected. Aside from that there was the constant danger from meteorite falls. He shook his head despairingly. Life on the moon wasn't all it could be. Not by a damn sight.

Nagel was becoming perturbed over their oxygen consumption. He had set up the small tanks containing algae in a nutrient solution, tending them like a mother hen. In time, if the cultivation were successful, the small algae farm would convert the carbon dioxide from their respiration into oxygen. At the present time the carbon dioxide was being absorbed by chemical means. As things stood, it was necessary for the entire crew to don spacesuits every time one of them left the cabin. Each time the cabin air was lost in the vacuum of the moon. Crag pointed out there was no alternative until the airlock was completed, a fact which didn't keep Nagel from complaining.

Otto Richter recovered fast. Before another day had passed—the Aztec continued to operate by earth clock—he seemed to have completely recovered. It was evident that concussion and shock had been the extent of his injuries. Crag didn't know whether to be sorry or glad, he didn't, in fact, know what to do with the man. He gave firm orders that Richter was never to be left alone—not for a moment.

He told him: "You will not be allowed in the area of any of the electronic equipment. First time you do ..." He looked meaningfully at him.

"I understand," the German said. Thereafter, except for occasional trips to the commode, or to help with work, he kept to the corner of the space cabin allotted him.

Larkwell came up for the evening meal wearing a grim look. He extended his hand toward Crag, holding a jagged chunk of rock nearly the size of a baseball.

Crag took the hunk and hefted it thoughtfully. "Meteorite?" The others clustered around.

"Yeah. I saw a hole in that cleared off section and reached down. There she was, big as life."

"If that had hit this pipe we'd be dead ducks," Prochaska observed.

"But it didn't hit," Crag corrected, trying to allay any gathering nervousness. "It just means that we're going to have to get going on the rill airlock as soon as possible."

"How will loss of Able affect that?" Nagel asked curiously.

"Only in the matter of size," Crag explained. "The possible loss of a drone was taken into account. The plastiblocks are constructed to make any size shelter possible. We'll start immediately when Baker lands." He looked thoughtfully at the men. "Let's not borrow any trouble."

"Yeah, there's plenty without borrowing any more," Prochaska agreed. He smiled cheerfully. "I vote we all stop worrying and eat."

Another complication arose. Drone Baker would be in orbit the following morning. Prochaska had to be prepared to bring it down. He was busy moving his equipment into one compact corner opposite the commode. He rigged a curtain around it, partly for privacy but mainly to mark off a definite area prohibited to Richter.

The communicator was becoming another problem that harried Crag. A government geologist wanted a complete description of Arzachel's rock structure. A space medicine doctor had a lot of questions about the working of the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange system. Someone else—Crag was never quite sure who—wanted an exact description of how the Aztec had handled during letdown. In the end he got on the communicator and curtly asked for Gotch.

"Keep these people off our backs until we land Drone Baker," he told him. "It's not headquarters for some damned quiz program."

"You're big news," Gotch placated. "What you tell us will help with future rockets."

"Like a mineral description of the terrain?"

"Even that. But cheer up, Commander. The worst is yet to come." He broke off before Crag could snap a reply. Prochaska grinned at his discomfiture.

"That's what comes of being famous," he said. "We're wheels."

"A wheel on the moon." Crag looked questioningly at him. "Is that good?"

"Damned if I know. I haven't been here long enough."

Crag was surprised to see how rapidly work in the tail section was progressing. Larkwell had loosened the giant engines and fuel tanks and pulled them from the ship with power from one of the rocket's servo motors. They lay on the dusty floor of the plain, incongruous in their new setting. He thought it a harbinger of things to come. A rocket garage on the floor of barren Arzachel. Four men attempting to build an empire from the hull of a space ship. In time it would be replaced by an airlock in a rill ... a military base ... a domed city. Pickering Field would become a transportation center, perhaps the hub of the Solar System's transportation empire. First single freighters, then ore trains, would travel the highways of space between earth mother and her long separated child. He sighed. The ore trains were a long way in the future.

Larkwell crawled out from the cavern he had hollowed in the hull and stretched. "Time for chow," he grunted. His voice over the interphones sounded tired. Nagel followed him looking morose. He didn't acknowledge Crag's presence.

At evening by earth clock they ate their scant fare. They were unusually silent. The Chief seemed weary from his long vigil on the scope. Larkwell's face was sweaty, smudged with grease. He ate quickly, with the air of a man preoccupied with weighty problems. Nagel was clearly bushed. Larkwell's fast pace had been too much for him. He wore a cross, irritable expression and avoided all conversation. Richter sat alone, seemingly unconcerned that he was a virtual prisoner, confined to one small corner of the cabin barely large enough to provide sleeping space. Crag had no feelings where he was concerned, neither resentment nor sympathy. The German was just a happenstance, a castaway in the war for Arzachel. Or, more probable, he thought, the war for the moon.

After chow the men took turns shaving with the single razor. It had been supplied only because of the need to keep the oxygen ports in the helmets free and to keep the lip mikes clear.

"Pure luxury," Prochaska said when his turn came. "Nothing's too good for the spaceman."

"Amen," Crag agreed. "I hope the next crew is going to get a bar of soap."

"For their sake I hope they pick something better than this crummy planet," Larkwell grunted.

Drone Baker had entered the moon's gravisphere at the precise time spelled out by the earth computers. Its speed had dropped to a mere two hundred miles per hour. It began to accelerate, pulled by the moon, moving in a vast trajectory calculated to put it into a closing orbit around the barren satellite. Prochaska picked it up and followed it on the scope. Telemeter control from Alpine fired the first braking rockets. The blast countered the moon's pull. Drone Baker was still a speck on the scope—a solitary traveler rushing toward them through the void.

"Seems incredible it took us that long," Crag mused, studying the instrument panel. He reached over and activated the analog. Back on earth saucers with faces lifted to the skies were tracking the drone's flight. Their information was channeled into computer batteries, integrated, analyzed, and sent back into space. The wave train ended in a gridded scope—the analog Crag was viewing.

"Seemed a damned lot shorter when we were up there," he speculated aloud.

"That's one experience that really telescopes time," the Chief agreed. "I'd hate to have to sweat it out again."

"When do we take over?"

Prochaska glanced at the master chrono. "Not till 0810, give or take a few minutes. It depends on the final computations from Alpine."

"Better catch some sleep," Crag suggested. "It's going to be touchy once we get hold of it."

"We'll be damn lucky if we get it down in Arzachel."

"We'd better." Crag grinned. "Muff this and we might as well take out lunar citizenship."

"No thanks. Not interested."

"What's the matter, Max, no pioneer spirit?"

"Go to hell," Prochaska answered amiably.

"Now, Mr. Prochaska, that's no way to speak to your commanding officer," Crag reproved with mock severity.

"Okay. Go to hell, Sir," he joked.

Richter was a problem. Someone had to be awake at all times. Crag decided to break the crew into watches, and laid out a tentative schedule. He would take the first watch, Larkwell would relieve him at midnight, and Nagel would take over at 0300. That way Prochaska would get a full night's sleep. He would need steady nerves come morning. He outlined the schedule to the crew. Neither Larkwell nor Nagel appeared enthusiastic over the prospect of initiating a watch regime, but neither protested openly.

When the others were asleep, Crag cut off the light to preserve battery power. He studied the lunar landscape out