First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton (thriller books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Jeff Sutton
Book online «First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton (thriller books to read .TXT) 📗». Author Jeff Sutton
He got to his feet, weaving dizzily, and forced his legs to move. Once or twice he fell, regaining his feet with difficulty.
He heard a voice. It took him a minute to realize it was his own. He was babbling to Prochaska, trying to tell him ...
The sky was black. No, it was white, dazzling white, white with heat, red with flame. He saw Red Dog with difficulty. The rocket was a hotel, complete with room clerk. He laughed inanely. A Single, please. No, I'll only be staying for the night. He fell again. This time it took him longer to regain his feet. He stumbled ... walked ... stumbled. His eyes sought the rocket. It was weaving, swaying back and forth. Foolish, he thought, there was no wind in Crater Arzachel. No air, no wind, no nothing. Nothing but death. Wait, there was someone sitting on top of the rocket—a giant of a man with a long white beard. He watched Crag and smiled. He reached out a hand and beckoned. Crag ran. The sky exploded within his brain, his legs buckled and he felt his face plate smash against the ashy floor. For all eternity, he thought. The blackness came.
Adam Crag opened his eyes. He was lying on his back. Above him the dome of the sky formed a great black canopy sprinkled with brilliant stars. His thoughts, chaotic memories, gradually stabilized and he remembered his mad flight toward Red Dog.
This couldn't be death, he thought. Spirits didn't wear space suits. He sensed movement and twisted his head to one side. Gordon Nagel! The oxygen man's face behind the heavy plate was thin, gaunt, but he was smiling. Crag thought that he had never seen such a wonderful smile. Nagel's lips crinkled into speech:
"I was beginning to wonder when you'd make it." Even his voice was different, Crag thought. The nasal twang was gone. It was soft, mellow, deep with concern. He thought it was the most wonderful sound he had ever heard.
"Thanks, Gordon," he said simply. He spoke the words thinking it was the first time he'd ever addressed the other by his first name.
"How'd you ever locate me?"
"Started early," Nagel said. "I was pretty sure you'd push yourself past the point of no return. You seemed pretty set on getting that critter."
"It's a wonder you located me." He managed to push himself to a sitting position.
"Prochaska didn't think I could. But I did. Matter of fact, I was pretty close to you when you broke from the rocks heading for Red Dog." Red Dog! Crag twisted his head and looked toward the rocket.
"He's lying at the base of the rocket," Nagel said, in answer to his unspoken question. "Your last volley sprayed him."
"Skipper!" Prochaska's voice broke impatiently into his earphones.
"Still alive," Crag answered.
"Yeah—just." Prochaska's voice was peevish. "You were lucky with that last burst of fire."
"Thanks to my good marksmanship," Crag quipped weakly.
"I wish you'd quit acting like a company of Marines and get back here."
"Okay, Colonel."
Prochaska cursed and Crag grinned happily. It was good to be alive, even in Crater Arzachel.
Nagel helped him to his feet and Crag stood for a moment, feeling the strength surge back into his body. He breathed deeply, luxuriating in the plentiful oxygen. Fresh oxygen. Fresh as a maiden's kiss, he thought Oxygen was gold. More than gold. It was life.
"Ready, now?"
"Ready as I ever will be," Crag answered. "Lead on, Gordon."
They had almost reached Bandit when Crag broke the silence. "Why did you come ... to the moon, Gordon?"
Nagel slowed his steps, then stopped and turned.
"Why did you come, Commander?"
"Because ... because ..." Crag floundered. "Because someone had to come," he blurted. "Because I was supposed to be good in my field." His eyes met Nagel's. The oxygen man was smiling, faintly.
"I'm good in mine, too," he said. He chewed at his bottom lip for a moment.
"I could give the same reasons as you," he said finally. "Truthfully, though, there's more to it." He looked at Crag defiantly.
"I was a misfit on earth, Commander. A square peg in a round hole. I had dreams ... dreams, but they were not the dreams of earth. They were dreams of places in which there were no people." He gave an odd half-smile. "Of course I didn't tell the psych doctors that."
"There's plenty I didn't tell 'em, myself," Crag said.
"Commander, you might not understand this but ... I like the moon." He looked away, staring into the bleakness of Arzachel. Crag's eyes followed his. The plain beyond was an ash-filled bowl broken by weird ledges, spires, grotesque rocks. In the distance Backbone Ridge crawled along the floor of the basin, forming its fantastic labyrinths. Yet ... yet there was something fascinating, almost beautiful about the crater. It was the kind of a place a man might cross the gulfs of space to see. Nagel had crossed those gulfs. Yes, he could understand.
"I'll never return to earth," he said, almost dreamily.
"Nonsense."
"Not nonsense, Commander. But I'm not unhappy at the prospect. Do you remember the lines:
Oh, dig the grave and let me lie ...
Well, that's the way I feel about the moon."
"You'll be happy enough to get back to earth," Crag predicted.
"I won't get back, Commander. Don't want to get back." He turned broodingly toward Bandit.
"Maybe we'd better move on," Crag said gently. "I crave to get out of this suit."
CHAPTER 17"Martin Larkwell was a good boy," the superintendent said reminiscently, "and of course we're highly pleased he's made his mark in the world." He looked at the agent and beamed. "Or should I say the moon?" The agent smiled dutifully.
"Young Martin was particularly good with his hands. Not that he wasn't smart," he added hurriedly. "He was very bright, in fact, but he was fortunate in that he coupled it with an almost uncanny knack of using his hands."
The superintendent rambled at length. The agent listened, thinking it was the same old story. The men in the moon were all great men. They had been fine, upstanding boys, all bright with spotless records. Well, of course that was to be expected in view of the rigorous weeding out program which had resulted in their selections. Only one of them was a traitor. Which one? The question drummed against his mind.
"Martin wasn't just a study drudge," the superintendent was saying. "He was a fine athlete. The star forward of the Maple Hill Orphanage basketball team for three years," he added proudly. He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if taking the agent into his confidence.
"We're conducting a drive to build the orphanage a new gym. Maybe you can guess the name we've selected for it?"
"The Martin Larkwell Gymnasium," the agent said drily.
"Right." The superintendent beamed. "That's how much we think of Martin Larkwell."
As it turned out, the superintendent wasn't the only one who remembered Martin Larkwell with fondness. A druggist, a grocer, a gas station operator and a little gray lady who ran a pet shop remembered the orphan boy with surprising affection. They and many others. That's the way the chips fall, the agent thought philosophically. Let a man become famous and the whole world remembers him. Well, his job was to separate the wheat from the chaff.
In the days to follow he painstakingly traced Martin Larkwell's trail from the Maple Hill Orphanage to New York, to various construction jobs along the East Coast and, finally, through other agents, to a two-year stint in Argentina as construction boss for an American equipment firm. Later the trail led back to America and, finally, to construction foreman on Project Step One. His selection as a member of the Aztec Crew stemmed from his excellent work and construction ability displayed during building of the drones. All in all, the agent thought, the record was clear and shiny bright.
Martin Larkwell, Gordon Nagel, Max Prochaska, Adam Crag—four eager scrub-faced American boys, each outstanding in his field. There was only one hitch. Who was the traitor?
Crag filled Gotch in on the latest developments in Crater Arzachel. The Colonel listened without interruption until he was through, then retaliated with a barrage of questions. What was the extent of the radioactive field? What were the dimensions of Red Dog? Had any progress been made toward salvaging the cargo of Drone Baker? How was the airlock in the rill progressing? Would he please describe the rocket launcher the enemy had used to destroy the Aztec? Crag gritted his teeth to keep from exploding, barely managing civil replies. Finally he could hold it no longer.
"Listen," he grated, "this is a four-man crew, not a damn army."
"Certainly," Gotch interrupted, "I appreciate your difficulties. I was just—in a manner of speaking—outlining what has to be done."
"As if I didn't know."
The Colonel pressed for his future plans. Crag told him what he thought in no uncertain terms. When he finished he thought he heard a soft chuckle over the earphones. Damn Gotch, he thought, the man is a sadist. The Colonel gave him another morsel of information—a tidbit that mollified him.
Pickering Field, Gotch informed him, was now the official name of the landing site in Crater Arzachel. Furthermore, the Air Force was petitioning the Joint Chiefs to make it an official part of the U.S. Air Force defense system. A fact which had been announced to the world. Furthermore, the United States had petitioned the U.N. to recognize its sovereignty over the moon. Before cutting off he added one last bit of information, switching to moon code to give it.
"Atom job near completion," he spelled out. For the moment Crag felt jubilant. An atom-powered space ship spelled complete victory over the Eastern World. It also meant Venus ... Mars ... magical names in his mind. Man was on his way to the stars. MAN—the peripatetic quester. For just an instant he felt a pang of jealousy. He'd be pinned to his vacuum while men were conquering the planets. Or would he? But the mood passed. Pickering Field, he realized, would play an important role in the future of space flight. If it weren't the stars, at least it was the jump-off. In time it would be a vast Air Force Base housing rockets instead of stratojets. Pickering Base—the jump-off—the road to the stars. Pretty soon the place would be filled with rank so high that the bird colonels would be doing mess duty. But right now, he was Mr. Pickering Field, the Man with the Brass Eyeballs.
While the others caught up on their sleep, Crag and Prochaska reviewed their homework, as the Chief had dubbed their planning sessions. The area in which Bandit rested was too far from the nearest rill to use as a base of operation, and it was also vulnerable to meteorite damage. Bandit had to be abandoned, and soon. Red Dog would be their next home. There was also the problem of salvaging the contents of Drone Baker and removing the contents of Drone Charlie. Last, there was the problem of building the airlock in one of the rills. When they had laid out the problems, they exchanged quizzical glances. The Chief smiled weakly.
"Seems like a pretty big order."
"A very big order," Crag amended. "The first move is to secure Red Dog." They talked about it until Crag found his eyelids growing heavy. Prochaska, although tired, volunteered to take the watch. Crag nodded gratefully—a little sleep was something he could use.
Red Dog was squat, ebony, taper-nosed, distinguishable from the lithic structures dotting this section of Crater Arzachel only by its symmetry. The grotesque rock ledges, needle-sharp pinnacles and twisted formations of the plain clearly were the handiwork of a nature in the throes of birth, when volcanoes burst and the floor of the crater was an uneasy sea of white-hot magmatic rock. Red Dog was just as clearly the creation of some other-world artificer, a creature born of the intelligence and patience of man, structured to cross the planetary voids. Yet it seemed a part of the plain, as ancient as the brooding dolomites and diorites which made the floor of Arzachel a lithic wonderland. The tail of Red Dog was buried in the ash of the plain. Its body reached upward, canted slightly from the vertical, as if it were ready to spring again to the stars.
The rocket launcher had been removed. Now it stood on
Comments (0)