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

The moon goes to the country whose living representative is based here when the U.N. makes its decision—which should be soon. Note that I said living."

"Most of the supplies are in Red Dog," Crag pointed out.

"There's enough here for one man." The voice was maddeningly bland in Crag's earphones.

"You won't live through the rockstorm," Crag promised savagely.

"The chances of a direct hit are pretty remote. You said that yourself."

"Maybe...."

"That's good enough for me."

"Damn you, Larkwell, you can't do this. Throw that ladder down." It was Nagel. Again the scream came over the earphones: "Throw it down, I say."

"You've made a mistake," Crag cut in calmly. "We can survive. There's enough oxygen in Red Dog."

"I opened each cylinder you handed down," the man in the hatch stated matter-of-factly. "In fact, I opened all of the cylinders in Red Dog. Sorry, Mister Crag, but the oxygen's all gone. Soon you'll follow Prochaska."

"You did that?" Crag's voice was a savage growl.

"This is war, Mister Crag. Prochaska was an enemy." He spoke almost conversationally. Crag had the feeling that everyone was crazy. It was a fantastic mixed-up dream, a nightmare. Soon he'd awaken....

"Coward!" Nagel screamed. "Coward—damned coward!"

The figure in the hatch vanished into the rocket. He's armed! Crag's mind seized on die knowledge that two automatic rifles were still in Bandit. He ordered the men back, alarmed. Nagel stood his ground screaming maledictions.

"Come back, Gordon," Crag snapped.

Malin reappeared a few seconds later holding a rifle. Crag snapped his torch off, leaving the plain in darkness.

"Move back," he ordered again.

"I won't. I'm going to get into that rocket," Nagel babbled. He lunged forward and was lost in the darkness before Crag could stop him.

"Nagel, get back here! That's an order."

"I won't ... I won't!" His scream was painful in Crag's ears.

A yellow beam flashed down from the hatch and ran over the ground at the base of the rocket. It stopped, pinning Nagel in a circle of light. His face was turned up. He was cursing wildly, violently.

"Nagel!" Crag shouted a warning. Nagel shook his fist toward the hatch still screaming. Flame spurted from the black rectangle and he fell, crumpled on the plain.

"Move further back," Richter said quietly.

Crag stood indecisively.

Richter spoke more imperatively. "He's gone. Move back—while you can."

"Happy dreams, Mister Crag ... and a long sleep." The hatch closed.

CHAPTER 21

Nagel was dead. He lay sprawled in the ash, a pitifully small limp bundle in a deflated suit. He had gotten his wish—he would never see earth again. Under the wide and starry sky ... Now he was asleep with his dream. Asleep in the fantastically bizarre world he had come to love. But the fact still remained: Nagel had been murdered. Murdered in cold blood. Murdered by the killer of little Max Prochaska. And now the killer was in command! Crag looked down at the crumpled body, reliving the scene, feeling it burn in his brain.

Finally he rose, filled with a terrible cold anger.

"There's one thing he forgot...."

"What?" Richter asked.

"The cylinders in Drone Baker. We didn't move them."

He looked at his oxygen gauge. Low. Baker lay almost four miles to the east on a trail seldom used. They had never traversed it by night. Baker, in fact, had become the forgotten drone. He probed his mind. There was a spur of intervening rock ... rills ... a twisty trail threading between lofty pinnacles....

"Well have to hurry," Richter urged.

"Let's move...."

They started toward the east, walking silently, side by side, their former relationship forgotten. Crag accepted the fact that their survival, the success of his mission—Gotch's well-laid plans—could very well depend upon what Richter did. Or didn't do. He had suddenly become an integral part in the complex machine labeled STEP ONE.

They reached the ridge which lay between them and the drone and started upward, climbing slowly, silently, measuring distance against time in which time represented life-sustaining oxygen. The climb over the ridge proved extremely hazardous. Despite their torches they more than once brushed sharp needles of rock and stumbled over low jagged extrusions. They were panting heavily before they reached the crest and started down the opposite side. They reached the plain and Crag checked his oxygen gauge. The reading alarmed him. He didn't say anything to Richter but speeded his pace. The German's breath became a hoarse rumble in the earphones.

"Stop!" There was consternation in Richter's warning cry. Crag simultaneously saw the chasm yawning almost at their feet.

Richter said quietly: "Which way?"

"Damned if I know." Crag flashed his torch into the rill. It was wide and deep, a cleft with almost vertical sides. They would have to go around it. He flashed the light in both directions along the plain. There was no visible end to the fissure.

He studied the stars briefly and said, "East is to our right. We'll have to work along the rill and gamble that it ends soon."

It did. They rounded its end and resumed their way toward the east. Crag had to stop several times to get his bearings. The shadows danced before the torch beams confusing him, causing odd illusions. He fell to navigating by the stars. It occurred to him that Baker, measured against the expanse of the plain, would be but a speck of dust.

Richter's voice broke reflectively into his earphones, "Oxygen's about gone. Looks like this place is going to wind up a graveyard."

Crag said stubbornly: "We'll make it."

"It better be soon...."

"We should be about there."

They topped a small rise and dropped back to the plain. The needle of Drone Baker punctuated the sky—blotted out the stars. Oxygen ... oxygen. The word was sweet music. He broke into a run, reached its base and clawed at the ladder leading to its hold. He got inside panting heavily, conscious of a slightly dizzy feeling, and grabbed the first cylinder he saw. He hooked it into his suit system before looking down toward the plain. Richter was not in sight. Filled with alarm he grabbed another cylinder and hurried down the ladder. His torch picked up Richter's form near the base of the rocket. He hooked the cylinder into his suit system and turned the valve, hoping he was in time, then flashed his torch on the German's face. He seemed to be breathing. Crag called experimentally into the earphone, without answer. He finally snapped off the torch to conserve the battery and waited, his mind a jumble of thoughts.

"Commander...?"

"Good. I was scared for a moment." He flashed the torch down. Richter's eyes were open; he was smiling faintly.

"Not a bad way to go," he managed to say. "Nice and easy."

"The only place you're going is Red Dog."

"I'll be okay in a minute."

"Sure you will."

Richter struggled to his feet breathing deeply. "I'm okay."

"We'd better get some more oxygen—enough to last through the fireworks," Crag suggested.

They returned to the drone and procured eight cylinders, lowering them with a piece of line supplied for the purpose. They climbed down to the plain, packed the cylinders and started for Red Dog.

"Going to be close but we'll make it," Crag said, thinking of the warhead.

Richter answered confidently: "We'll make it."

Strange, Crag thought, I wind up fighting with the enemy to keep one of my own crew from murdering me. Enemy? No, he could no longer brand Richter an enemy. He felt a pang of regret over the way he'd mistrusted him. Still, there had been no other course. A thought jolted him. He spoke casually, aware he might be stepping on Richter's toes: "There's one thing I don't understand...."

"What?"

"Larkwell's an enemy agent...." He hesitated.

"And...?"

"Why didn't he attempt to solicit your aid?" Crag finished bluntly.

"You're a spaceman, Commander, not an intelligence agent."

"I don't get the connection."

"An agent trusts no one. And a saboteur is the lone wolf of the agents. Trust me? Ha! He'd just as soon trust your good Colonel Gotch. No, Larkwell wouldn't have trusted me. Never."

Crag was silent. An agent who couldn't trust a soldier of his own country, even when the chips were down? It was a philosophy he couldn't understand. As for Larkwell! He vowed he'd live long enough to see him dead. More, he'd kill him himself. He was planning how he'd accomplish it when they reached the rill where Red Dog was buried. He switched his torch on and ran it along the edge of the chasm until he located the rope ladder leading down to the airlock.

"You lower 'em and I'll pack 'em." Crag ordered. He descended into the rill and began moving the cylinders Richter lowered to him. Finished, he examined the cylinders they had brought earlier. Empty! His lips set in a thin line as he examined the cylinders which the rocket had brought from earth. Empty ... all empty. Larkwell had done a thorough job.

He gritted his teeth. Before he was through he'd ram the empty cylinders down Larkwell's throat. Yeah, and that wasn't all. He contemplated the step-by-step procedure. Larkwell would die. Die horribly. He looked toward the hatch wondering what was detaining Richter. He waited a moment, then climbed back to the plain. The German was nowhere in sight.

"Richter?" There was no answer. He checked his interphone to make sure it was working and called again. Silence. He swept his torch over the plain. No Richter. The German had vanished ... disappeared into the black maw of the crater.

"Richter! Richter, answer me...!" Silence. Apprehension swept him. He called again, desperately:

"Richter!"

"I'm all right, Commander." Richter's voice was low, seeming to have come from a distance. "You'd better get back into Red Dog."

"Where are you?" Crag demanded.

"I have a job to do."

"Come back." The German didn't answer. Crag was about to start in pursuit when he realized he didn't have the faintest idea what direction Richter had taken. He hesitated, baffled and fearful by turn.

Periodically he called his name without receiving an answer. He fumed, wondering what the German had in mind. He couldn't get into Bandit and, besides, he was unarmed. He popped back into Red Dog and looked at the chrono. If Gotch's figures were right the warhead would strike in four minutes. He climbed out of the rill.

"Warhead due in less than four minutes," he called into his mike.

"Get back into Red Dog, Commander," Richter insisted.

Crag snapped irritably: "What the hell are you trying to do."

"Commander, many people have crossed the frontier—from East to West. Many others have wanted to."

"I don't get you."

"I had to come all the way to Arzachel to find my frontier, Commander."

"Richter, come back," Crag ordered, his voice level.

"There's nothing you can do. You didn't know it but when I landed here I crossed the frontier, Commander. I went from East to West, on the moon."

"Richter...?"

"Now I am free."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but you'd better get back here—and pronto. You'll get massacred if you're on the plain when the rocket hits." Inwardly he was shaken. "There's not a damn thing you can do about Larkwell."

"Ah, but there is. He forgot two things, Commander. The oxygen in Baker was only the first."

"And the second?"

Richter did not answer.

Crag called again. No answer. He waited, uncertain what to do next.

The ground twisted violently under his feet. The warhead! A series of diminishing quakes rolled the plain in sharp jolts. Missed Arzachel, he thought jubilantly. It missed ... missed. He twisted his head upward. The sky was black, black, a great black spread that reached to infinity, broken only by the brilliance of the stars. Off to one side Betelgeuse was a baleful red eye in the shoulder of Orion.

A picture of what was happening flashed through his mind. Somewhere between Alphons and Arzachel thousands of tons of rock were hurtling upward in great ballistic trajectories, parabolic courses which would bring them crashing back onto the lunar surface. Many would escape, would hurtle through space until infinity ended. Some would be caught in the gravisphere of planets, would crash down into strange worlds. But most would smash back on the moon. Rocks ranging in size from grains of dust to giants capable of smashing skyscrapers would fall like rain.

"Richter! Richter!" He repeated the call several times. No answer. He swept his torch futilely over the plain. Richter was a dedicated man. If the coming rain of death held any fears for him he failed to show it. He looked up again, fancying that he saw movement against the stars. Somewhere up there mountains were hurtling through the void. He hurriedly descended into the rill, hesitated, then moved into the rocket. He again hesitated before leaving the airlock open. Richter might return.

After a while he felt the first thud, a jolt that shook the rocket and traveled through his body like a wave. The floor danced under his feet. He held his breath expectantly, suppressing an instant of panic. The rocket vibrated several