Jeff Sutton (9 page)

"Going
to be nip and tuck," he told Frochaska. The Chief nodded.

"Don't like the looks
of that stinker," he grunted.

Crag
watched the analog a moment longer before turning to the quartz viewport. His
eyes filled with wonder. For untold ages lovers had sung of the moon,
philospohers had pondered its mysteries, astronomers had scanned and mapped
every visible mile of its surface until selenography had achieved
an exactness
comparable to earth cartography. Scientists
had proved beyond doubt that the moon wasn't made of green cheese. But no human
eye had ever beheld its surface as Crag was doing now—Crag, Frochaska, Larkwell
and Nagel. The latter two were peering through the side ports. Frochaska and
Crag shared the forward panel. It was a tribute to the event that no word was
spoken. Aside from the Chiefs occasional checks on Drone Able and Bandit —the
name stuck—the four pairs of eyes seldom left the satellite's surface.

The
landing plan called for circling the moon during which they were to maneuver
Drone Able into independent orbit. It was Crag's job to bring the Aztec down at
a precise point
,in
Crater Arzachel and the Chiefs job
to handle the drone
landing
s,
a task as ticklish as
landing
the Aztec itself.

The
spot chosen for landing was in an. area where the Crater's floor was broken by
a series of rills—wide, shallow cracks the earth scientists hoped would give
protection against the fall of meteorites. Due to lack of atmosphere the
particles in space, ranging from dust grains to huge chunks of rock, were more
lethal than bullets. They were another unknown in the gamble for the moon. A
direct hit by even a grain-sized particle could puncture a space suit and bring
instant death. A large one could utterly destroy the rocket itself. Larkweh's
job was to construct an airlock in one of the rills from durable lightweight
prefabricated plasu'blocks carried in the drones. Such an airlock would protect
them from all but vertically falling meteorites.

Crag
felt almost humble in the face of the task they were undertaking. He knew his
mind alone could grasp but a minute part of the knowledge that went into making
the expedition possible. Their saving lay in the fact they were but agents,
protoplasmic extensions of a complex of computers, scientists, plans which had
taken years to formulate, and a man named Michael Gotch who had said:

"You
will land on
Arzachel."

He
initiated the zero
phase
by ordering the crew into
their pressure suits. Frochaska took over while he donned his own bulky
garment, grimacing as he pulled the heavy helmet over his shoulders. Later, in
the last moments of descent, he would snap down the face plate and pressurize
the suit
Until
then he wanted all the freedom the
bulky garments would allow.

"Might as well get used to it"
Frochaska grinned. He flexed his arms experimentally.

Larkwefl
grunted. "Wait till they're pressurized. You'll think rigor mortis has set
in."

Crag grinned. "That's
a condition I'm opposed to."

"Amen."
LarkweD gave a weak experimental jump and prompdy smacked his head against the
low overhead. He was smiling foolishly when Nagel snapped at him:

"One
more of those and you'll be walking around the moon without a pressure
suit" He peevishly insisted on examining the top of the helmet for
damage.

Crag
fervendy hoped they wouldn't need the suits for landing. Any damage that would
allow the Aztec's oxygen to escape would in itself be a death sentence, even
though death might be dragged over the long period of time it would take to die
for lack of food. An intact space cabin represented the only haven in which
they could escape from the cum
bersome garments long enough to tend their biological
needs.

Imperceptibly
the sensation of weight returned, but it
was
not
the body weight of earth. Even on the moon's
surface
they would weigh but one-sixth their normal
weight.

"Skipper, look."
Prochaska's startled exclamation
drew
Crag's
eyes to the radarscope. Bandit had made minute
cor
rections in its course.

"They're
using steering rockets," Crag mused, trying to assess its meaning.

"Doesn't
make sense," said Prochaska. "They
can't have
that kind of power to spare. They'll need every
bit they
have for landing."

"What's
up?" Larkwell peered over their shoulders, eyeing the radarscope. Crag bit
off an angry retort. Larkwell
sensed
the
rebuff and returned away. They kept their
eyes
glued to the scope. Bandit maneuvered to a position slighdy
be
hind and to one side of the silver drone. Crag looked out the side port.
Bandit was clearly visible, a monstrous cylinder boring through the void with
cold precision. There was something ominous about it. He felt the hair prickle
at the nape of his neck. Larkwell" moved alongside him.

Bandit
made another minute correction. White
vapor shot
from
its tail and it began to move ahead.

"Using
rocket power," Crag grunted. "Damn if
I can
figure that one out."

"Looks crazy to me.
I should think—"
Prochaska's voice
froze. A minute pip broke off from Bandit,
boring through
space toward the silver drone.

"Warheadl" Crag
roared the word with
cold
anger.

Prochaska cursed softly.

One
second Drone Able was there, riding
serenely through
space.
The next it disintegrated, blasted
apart by internal
explosions.
Seconds later only fragments of
the drone were
visible.

Prochaska stared at Crag, his face
bleak. Crag's brain
reeled. He mentally examined what had
happened, culling his thoughts until one cold fact remained.

"Mistaken
identity," he said sofdy. "They thought it was the Aztec."

"Now
what?"

"Now
we hope they haven't any more warheads." Crag mulled the possibility.
"Considering weight factors, I'd guess they haven't. Besides, there's no
profit in wasting a warhead on a drone."

"We
hope." Prochaska studied Bandit through the port, and licked his lips
nervously. "Think we ought to contact Alpine?"

Crag
weighed the question. Despite- the tight beam, any communication could be a
dead giveaway. On the other hand, Bandit either had the capacity to destroy
them or it didn't
If
it did, well, there wasn't much
they could do about it He reached a decision and nodded to Prochaska, then
began coding his thoughts.

He
had trouble getting through on the communicator. Finally he got a weak return
signal,
then
sent a brief report. Alpine acknowledged
and cut off the air.

"What now?"
Prochaska
asked,
when Crag had finished.

He
shrugged and turned to the side port without answering. Bandit loomed large, a
long thick rocket with an oddly blunted nose. A monster that was as deadly as
it looked.

"Big," he surmised. "Much bigger man this chunk of
hardware."
                                                        
-

"Yeah,
a regular battleship," Prochaska assented. He grinned crookedly.
"In more ways than one."

Crag
sensed movement at his shoulder and turned his head. Nagel was studying the
radarscope over his shoulder. Surprise lit his narrow face.

"The drone?"

"Destroyed," Crag said bruskly.
"Bandit had a warhead."

Nagel
looked startled, then retreated to his seat
without
a
word. Crag returned his attention to the enemy
rocket. "What do you think?" he asked Prochaska. His answer was
solemn. "It spells trouble."

CHAPTER
8

At a precise
point in space spelled out by the
Alpine
computers Crag applied the first braking rockets.
He
realized that the act had been an immediate tip-off to the occupants of
the other rocket. No matter, he thought.
Sooner or
later
they had to discover it was the drone they had destroyed
Slowly
,
almost imperceptibly, their headlong flight was slowed. He nursed the rockets
with care. There was no fuel to spare, no energy to waste, no room for error.
Everything had
been
worked out long beforehand;
he was merely the agent of
ex
ecution.

The
sensation of weight gradually increased.
He ordered
Larkwell
and Nagel into their seats in strapdown
position.
He
and Prochaska shortly, followed, but
he left his
shoulder
harnessing loose to give his arms the vital
freedom he needed
for the intricate maneuvers ahead.

The
moon rushed toward them at an
appalling rate.
Its
surface was a harsh grille work of
black and white, a
nightmarish scape of pocks and twisted
mountains of
rock
rimmin
g the flat lunar plains. It
was,
he thought,
the geometry of a maniac. There was no
softness, no
blend of fight and shadow, only terrible
cleavages
between
black
and
white. Yet there was a beauty that
gripped
his imagination;

the
raw, stark beauty of a nature undefiled by
life. No eye had ever seen the canopy of the heavens from the bleak surface
below; no flower had ever wafted in a lunar breeze.

Prochaska
nudged his arm and indicated the scope. Bandit was almost abreast them. Crag
nodded understandingly.

"No more warheads."

"Guess
we're just loaded with luck," Prochaska agreed wryly.

They
watched . . .
waited .
.
mindless
of time. Crag felt the tension building inside him. Occasionally he glanced at
the chronometer, itching for action. The wait seemed interminable.
Minutes or hours?
He, lost track of time.

All
at once his hands and mind were busy with the braking rockets, dials, meters.
First the moon had been a pallid giant in the sky; next it filled the horizon.
The effect was startling. The limb of the moon, seen as a shallow curved
horizon, no longer was smooth. It appeared as a rugged saw-toothed arc, somehow
reminding him of the Devil's Golf Course in California's Death Valley. It was
weird and wonderful, and slightiy terrifying.

Prochaska
manned the automatic camera to record the orbital and landing phases. He spotted
the Crater of Ptolemaeus first, near the center-line of the disc. Crag made a
minute correction with the steering rockets. The enemy rocket followed suit
Prochaska gave a short harsh laugh without humor.