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

an eery feeling.

He reached Bandit and waited for the others to arrive. Prochaska, fresher than the others, was first on the scene. He threw a mock salute to Crag and started up the ladder. Larkwell and Richter arrived moments later. He watched them approach. They seemed stooped—like old men, he thought—but they gave him a short nod before climbing to the space cabin. He was beginning to worry before Nagel finally appeared. The oxygen man was staggering with weariness, barely able to stand erect. Crag stepped aside.

"After you, Gordon."

"Thanks, Skipper."

Crag anxiously watched while Gordon pulled his way up the rope ladder. He paused halfway and rested his head on his arms. After a moment he resumed the climb. Crag waited until he reached the cabin before following. Could Nagel hold out? Could a man die of sheer exhaustion? The worry nibbled at his mind. Maybe he should give him a day's rest—let him monitor the communicator. Or just sleep. As it was his contribution to their work was nil. He did little more than go through the motions.

Crag debated the problem while they pressurized the cabin and removed their suits. What would Gotch do? Gotch would drive him till he died. That's what Gotch would expect him to do. No, he couldn't be soft. Even Nagel's slight contribution might make the difference between success or failure. Life or death. He would have to ride it out. Crag set his lips grimly. He had felt kinder toward the oxygen man since that brief period when Nagel had let him peer into his mind. Now ... now he felt like his executioner. Just when he was beginning to understand the vistas of Nagel's being. But understanding and sympathizing with Nagel made his task all the more difficult. Impatiently he pushed the problem from his mind. There were other, bigger things he had to consider. Like the warhead.

Larkwell was getting out their rations when Prochaska slumped wordlessly to the floor. Crag leaped to his side. The Chief's face was white, drawn, twisted in a curious way. Crag felt bewildered. Odd but his brain refused to function. He was struggling to make himself think when he saw Nagel leap for his pressure suit. Understanding came. He shouted to the others and grabbed for his own garments. He fought a wave of dizziness while he struggled to get them on. His fingers were heavy, awkward. He fumbled with the face plate for long precious seconds before he managed to pull it shut and snap on the oxygen.

Nagel had finished and was trying to dress Prochaska. Crag sprang to help him. Together they managed to get him into his suit and turn on his oxygen. Only then did he speak.

"How did we lose oxygen, Gordon?"

"I don't know." He sounded frightened. "A slow leak." He got out his test equipment and fumbled with it. The others watched, waiting nervously until he finally spoke.

"A very slow leak. Must have been a meteorite strike."

"Can you locate it?"

Nagel shrugged in his suit "It'll take time—and cost some oxygen."

Crag looked at him and decided he was past the point of work. Past, even, the point of caring.

"We'll take care of it," he said gently. "Get a little rest, Gordon."

"Thanks, Skipper." Nagel slumped down in one of the seats and buried his head in his arms. Before long Prochaska began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked blankly at Crag for a long moment before comprehension came to his face.

"Oxygen?"

"Probably a meteorite strike. But it's okay ... now."

Prochaska struggled to his feet "Well, I needed the rest," he joked feebly.

The leak put an end to all thoughts of rations. They would have to remain in their suits until it was found and repaired. At Crag's suggestion Nagel and Larkwell went to sleep. More properly, they simply collapsed in their suits. Richter, however, insisted on helping search for the break in the hull. Crag didn't protest; he was, in fact, thankful.

It was Prochaska who found it—a small rupture hardly larger than a pea in one corner of the cabin.

"Meteorite," he affirmed, examining the hole. "We're lucky it hasn't happened before."

They patched the break and repressurized the cabin, then tested it. Pressure remained constant. Crag gave a sigh of relief and started to shuck his suit. Richter followed his example but Prochaska hesitated, standing uncertainly.

"Makes you leery," he said.

"The chances of another strike are fairly low," Crag encouraged. "I feel the same way but we can't live in these duds." He finished peeling off his garments and Prochaska followed suit.

Despite his fatigue sleep didn't come easy to Crag. He tossed restlessly, trying to push the problems out of his mind. Just before he finally fell asleep thought of the saboteur popped into his mind. I'll be a sitting duck, he told himself. He was trying to pull himself back to wakefulness when his body rebelled.

He slept.

They prepared to lower Red Dog into the rill. Earth was humpbacked in the sky, almost a crescent, with a bright cone of zodiacal light in the east. The light was a herald of the coming sun, a sun whose rays would not reach the depths of Crater Arzachel for another forty-eight hours.

In the black pit of the crater the yellow torches of the work crew played over the body of the rocket, making it appear like some gargantuan monster pulled from the depths of the sea. It was poised on the brink of the rill with cables encircling its body, running to winches anchored nearby. The cables would be let out, slowly, allowing the rocket to descend into the depths of the crevice. Larkwell on the opposite side of the rill manned a power winch rigged to pull the rocket over the lip of the crevice.

"Ready on winch one?" His voice was a brittle bark, edgy with strain. Nagel spoke up.

"Ready on winch one."

"Ready on winch two?"

"Ready on winch two," Prochaska answered.

"Here we go." The line from Red Dog to Larkwell's winch tautened, jerked, then tautened once more. Red Dog seemed to quiver, and began rolling slowly toward the brink of the rill. Crag watched from a nearby spur of rock. He smiled wryly. Lowering rockets on the moon was getting to be an old story. The cables and winches all seemed familiar. Well, this would be the last one they'd have to lower. He hoped. Richter stood beside him, silent. The rocket hung on the lip of the crevice for a moment before starting over.

"Take up slack." The lines to the anchor winches became taut and the rocket hung, half-suspended in space.

"Okay." Larkwell's line tightened again and the rocket jerked clear of the edge, held in space by the anchor winches.

"Lower away—slowly."

Crag moved to the edge of the rill, conscious of Richter at his heels. The man's constant presence jarred him; yet, he was there by his orders. He played his torch over the rocket. It was moving into the rill in a series of jerks. Its tail struck the ashy floor. In another moment it rested at the bottom of the crevice. They would make it. A wave of exultation swept him. The biggest problems could be whipped if you just got aboard and rode them. Well, he'd ridden this one—ridden it through a night of Stygian blackness and unbelievable cold. Ridden it to victory despite damnable odds. He felt jubilant.

But they would have to hurry if they were to get all their supplies and gear moved from Bandit before the warhead struck. They still had to cover Red Dog, burying it beneath a thick coat of ash. Would that be enough? It was designed to protect them from the dangers of meteorite dust, but would it withstand the rain of hell to come when the warhead struck? Wearily he pushed the thought from his mind.

When the others had secured their gear, he gave the signal to return to Bandit. They struck out, trudging through the blackness in single file, following a serpentine path between the occasional rills and knolls scattered between the two ships. Crag swung his arms in an effort to keep warm. Tiny needles of pain stabbed at his hands and feet, and the cold in his lungs was an agony. Even in the darkness the path between the rockets had become a familiar thing.

Despite the discomfort and weariness he rather liked the long trek between the rockets. It gave him time to think and plan, a time when nothing was demanded of him except that he follow a reasonably straight course. There was no warhead, no East World menace, no Gotch. There was only the blackness and the solitude of Crater Arzachel. He even liked the blackness of the lunar night, despite its attendant cold. The mantle of darkness hid the crater's ugliness, erasing its menacing profile and softening its features. He turned his eyes skyward as he walked. The earth was huge, many times the size of the full moon as seen from its mother planet, yet it seemed fragile, delicate, a pale ethereal wanderer of the heavens.

Crag did not think of himself as an imaginative man. Yet when he beheld the earth something stirred deep within him. The earth became not a thing of rock and sea water and air, but a living being. He thought of Earth as she. At times she was a ghost treading among the stars, a waif lost in the immensity of the universe. And at times she was a wanton woman, walking in solitary splendor, her head high and proud. The stars were her lovers. Crag walked through the night, head up, wondering if ever again he would answer her call.

He had almost reached Bandit when Nagel's voice broke excitedly into his earphones.

"Something's wrong with Prochaska!"

Crag stopped in his tracks, gripped by a sudden fear.

"What?"

"He was somewhere ahead of me. I just caught up to him...."

"What's wrong with him?" Crag snapped irritably. Damn, wouldn't the man stop beating around the bush?

"He's collapsed."

"Coming," Crag said. He hurried back through the darkness, cursing himself for having let the party get strung out.

"Too late, Commander." It was Richter's voice. "His suit's deflated. Must have been a meteorite strike."

"Stay there," Crag ordered. "Larkwell...?"

"I'm backtracking too...."

They were all there when he arrived, gathered around Prochaska's huddled form. The yellow lights of their torches pinned his body against the ashy plain. Larkwell, on his knees, was running his hands over the electronic chief's body. Crag dropped to his side.

"Here it is!"

Larkwell's fingers had found the hole, a tiny rip just under the shoulder. Crag examined it, conscious that something was wrong. It didn't look like the kind of hole a meteorite would make. It looked, he thought, like, a small rip. The kind of a rip a knife point might make. He stared up at Larkwell. The construction boss's eyes met his and he nodded his head affirmatively. Crag got to his feet and faced the German.

"Where were you when this happened?"

"Ahead of him," Richter answered. "We were strung out. I think I was next in line behind you."

Larkwell said softly: "You got here before I did. That would put you behind me."

"I was ahead of you when we started." The German contemplated Larkwell calmly. "I didn't see you pass me."

Crag turned to Nagel. "Where were you, Gordon?"

"At the rear, as usual." His voice was bitter.

"How far was Prochaska ahead of you?"

"I wouldn't know." He looked away into the blackness, then back to Crag. "Would you expect me to?"

Crag debated. Clearly he wasn't getting anywhere with the interrogation. He looked at Nagel. The man seemed on the verge of collapse.

"We'll carry Max back. Lend a hand, Richter." His voice turned cold. "I want to examine that rip in the light."

The German nodded calmly.

"Stay together," Crag barked. "No stringing out Larkwell, you lead the way."

"Okay." The construction boss started toward Bandit. Nagel fell in at his heels. Crag and Richter, carrying Prochaska's body between them, brought up at the rear.

It took the last of Crag's strength before they managed to get the body into the space cabin.

The men were silent while he conducted his examination. He removed the dead man's space suit, then stripped the clothing from the upper portion of his body, examining the flesh in the area where the suit had been punctured. The skin was unmarked. He studied the rip carefully. It was a clean slit.

"No meteorite," he said, getting to his feet. His voice was cold, dangerously low. Larkwell's face was grim. Nagel wore a dazed, almost uncomprehending expression. Richter looked thoughtful. Crag's face was an icy mask but his thoughts were chaotic. Fear crept into his mind. This was the danger Gotch had warned him of.

Richter? The saboteur? His eyes swung from man to man, coming finally to rest on the German. While he weighed the problem, one part of his mind told him a warhead was scorching down