Jeff Sutton (14 page)

"Certainly,
but about Gordon Nagel
. .
P" "Yes, of
course." The principal began to speak again. The agent relaxed, listening.
He didn't give a damn about the moon but he was extremely interested in the
thirty some years of Nagel's life preceding that trip.
Very
much so.
He left the school
rninlring
that
Nagel owed quite a lot to Braxton High. At least the principal had inferred as
much.

"Yes, I did go with Gordon for a
while," Mrs. LeRoy Farwell said. "But of course it was never serious.
Just an occasional school dance or something.
He
might be famous but, well, frankly he wasn't my type. He was an awful
drip." Her eyes brushed the agent's face meaningfully.

"I like 'em live
,,
if you know what I mean."

"Certainly,
Mrs. FarweU," the agent' said gravely. "But about Nagel
       
P"

There
were many people representing three decades of contact with Gordon Nagel. Some
of them recalled him 0B$
)£
^ fleetingly. Others rambled
at length. Odd little entries came" to life to fit into the dossier.
Photographs and records were exhumed. Gordon
Nagel .
.
   
Gordon Nagel . . .

The file on Gordon Nagel grew.

Colonel Michael Gotch didn't like the idea of
an addition to the Aztec crew.
Didn't like it at all.
He informed Crag that the rescue had been entirely unnecessary. Unrealistic,
was the word he had used. He was extremely interested in the fact that Bandit
housed an arsenal. He suggested, in view of Drone Abie's loss, they shouldn't
overlook Bandit's supplies.

"Especially
as you have another mouth to feed," he said blandly.

Crag
agreed. He didn't say so but he had already planned just such a move. The
Colonel immediately launched into a barrage of questions concerning the crashed
rocket He seemed grieved when Crag couldn't supply answea^ddwn to the last
detail.

"Look,"
Crag finally exploded, "give us
time*
. .
time
. We just got here. Remember?"

"Yes
. . . yes, I know. But the information is: vital," Gotch said firmly.
"I would appreciate it if yon would try

Crag cursed and snapped the (ximmunicator
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-hne. 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,
fuehrer'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 succincdy. 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
upl" 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 slighdy 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 .rea-
son you can't help?" he asked sharply.
                                     
- ..-^Sfcv*;

"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 comer 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 swfveling 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 comer of the space cabin
allotted him.

LarkweD
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 plasti-blocks 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 comer 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 quesboningly 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.