CHAPTER 14
"Adam Crag was not a God-fearing man," the minister stated. His toneimplied that Crag had been just the opposite. "Not a bit like hisparents. The best family guidance in the world, yet he quit Sundayschool almost before he got started. I doubt that he's ever been tochurch since."
He looked archly at the agent. "Perhaps a godless world like the moon isjust retribution."
A garage mechanic, a junk dealer and the proprietor of a tool shop had alot to say about Adam Crag. So did the owner of a small privateairport. They remembered him as a boy with an insatiable appetite fortearing cars apart and converting them to what the junk dealer termed"supersonic jalopies."
Many people in El Cajon remembered Adam Crag. Strangely enough, histeachers all the way back through grade school had little difficulty inrecalling his antics and attitudes. An elementary teacher explained itby saying, "He was that kind of a boy."
The family doctor had the most to say about Adam. He had long sinceretired, a placid seventyish man who had elected to pass his last yearsin the same house, in an older section of the town, in which he'd beenborn.
He sat swinging and talking, reminiscing about "the growing up of youngAdam," as he put it. The agent had made himself at home on the frontsteps, listening. The doctor's comments were little short of being aneulogy.
He finished and was silent, tapping a black briar pipe against his handwhile he contemplated the agent with eyes which had long since ceased tosee.
"One other thing," he added finally. "Adam was sure a heller with thegirls."
The agent started to comment that Crag's dossier looked like the rollcall of a girl's dormitory but refrained. He didn't want to prejudicethe testimony.
* * * * *
Zero hour on the plains of Arzachel. The sun, an intolerably brilliantball pasted against the ebony sky, had started its drop toward thehorizon. The shadows on the plain were lengthening, harbingers of thebitter two-weeks-long night to come. They crept out from the sheer wallof the crater, reaching to engulf Pickering Base with icy fingers.
Crag and Prochaska were alone, now, in the stripped cabin of the Aztec.Nagel and Richter, under Larkwell's command, had departed for Bandit anhour earlier with the last of their supplies. Crag disliked splittingthe crew but saw no alternative. He had to gamble. The element ofcertainty, the ability to predict, the expectations of logic--all thesehad vanished, swept away by the vagaries of chance. They could do onlyso much. Beyond that their fate was pawn to the chaotic cross fires ofhuman elements pitted against the architecture of the cosmos. They werepuppets in the last lottery of probability.
Prochaska broke the silence: "It's going to be close."
Crag's eyes remained riveted to the instruments. Drone Charlie and RedDog were plunging through space separated by a scant half-hour's flighttime. Despite the drone's long launch lead, the gap between the tworockets had been narrowed to a perilous point. Drone Charlie wasdecelerating rapidly, her braking rockets flaring spasmodically to slowher headlong flight.
"We'd better get into our suits," Crag said finally. "We want to get outof this baby the second Charlie lets down."
Prochaska nodded. They left their suits unpressurized for the time beingto allow full mobility. In the moments ahead Prochaska, in particular,couldn't afford to be hampered by the rigidity the suit possessed whenunder pressure.
They turned back to the control panel. Charlie was hurtling overAlphons, dropping toward the bleak lunar landscape with incrediblespeed. The mechanical voice from Alpine droned a stream of data. Therewas a rapid exchange of information between Prochaska and Alpine. At itsconclusion he began taking over control of the drone. Crag watchedtensely. Prochaska's fingers, even though encased in the heavy suitmaterial, moved with certainty. In a little while he spoke withoutlooking up.
"Got it," he said laconically. He studied the instruments, then hisfingers sought the buttons controlling Charlie's forward brakingrockets.
Crag thought: _This is it._ Within scant moments the drone had coveredthe sky over the tangled land lying between Alphons and Arzachel. Itswept over the brimming cliffs at a scant two thousand feet. He saw therocket through the forward ports. White vapor flared from its noserockets. The Chief had it under full deceleration. The cloud of vaporcovered its body. Prochaska moved the steering control and the rocketslanted upward at ever-increasing angle of climb. Crag strained his neckto keep it in sight. He thought its rate of climb was too rapid butProchaska seemed unperturbed. His calm approach to the problem oflanding the drone gave Crag renewed confidence.
All at once, it seemed, Drone Charlie was hanging high in the sky, atapered needle miraculously suspended in the heavens. Then it begandropping ... dropping. Bursts of smoke and white vapor shot from itstail jets, becoming continuous as the rocket hurtled toward the plain.The drone was lost to sight in its own clouds, but he charted itsprogress by the vapor spurts at its lower edge. Prochaska was drainingthe tail braking jets of every ounce of energy. Suddenly the rocket gavethe illusion of hanging in mid-air. The gap between it and the starkterrain below seemed to have stopped closing. Crag half expected theblasting stern tubes to begin pushing the drone back into the sky.But ... no! It was moving down again, slowly.
Prochaska moved another control. A servo-mechanism within the rocketstirred to life and a spidery metal network moved out from its tailhousing. The drone dropped steadily, ever slower, and finally settled.The shock-absorbing frame folded, was crushed. At the same instantProchaska silenced its rockets. It settled down, its tail tubes pushedinto the plain's powdery ash scarcely a mile from the Aztec.
"Perfect." Prochaska sounded pleased with himself. His thin face brokeinto a satisfied smile.
"Nice going," Crag agreed. "Now let's get out of this trap."
His eyes lingered for an instant on the analog. Red Dog had alreadycleared Ptolemaeus. He snapped his face plate shut, clicked on theinterphone and turned the oxygen valve. His suit began to swell and growrigid against his body. When they were pressurized, he opened the hatchand they clambered out onto the plain. He closed the hatch behind themand struck off in the direction of Bandit with the Chief at his heels.
They moved as rapidly as possible. Their feet in the heavy insulatedspace boots kicked up small fountains of dust which dropped as quicklyas they rose. From time to time Crag looked back toward the brimmingcliffs. Prochaska plodded head down. His quickened breathing in theinterphones sounded harsh to Crag. Plainly the long hours of monitoringthe Aztec's instruments had made him soft. The microphone in his helmetcame to life. It was Larkwell.
"Red Dog's cleared the rim," he told them.
Crag glanced back. His eyes caught the wispish trail of white vapor highabove the cliffs before he saw the rocket itself. It was already invertical attitude, letting down amid a cloud of white vapor from itsstern braking rockets.
"All hands disconnect their interphones," he commanded. "From here onout we operate in silence." The Red Dog interphone system might or mightnot be on the same band they used. He wasn't about to take that risk.
"Okay," Larkwell acknowledged. "We're shutting off."
Crag remembered that the German's interphones were still connected. Slipone. He decided to leave his own open--at least he'd be forewarned ifanyone tried to alert the Red Dog crew. He turned back toward therocket. Red Dog was dropping about two or three miles from the Aztec inthe direction of the wrecked Baker.
White smoke and flame poured from its stern tubes. It slowed visibly asit neared the lunar surface. He thought that a plumb bob dropped throughthe long axis of the rocket would form a right angle with the surfaceof Arzachel. Pilot's good, he thought. He watched until it touched downteetering on its stern tubes for a moment before coming to rest; then heturned and hurried to overtake Prochaska.
The Chief's face behind his mask was covered with perspiration. Hepanted heavily. Crag beckoned him to follow and moved behind a low swaleof rock where they would be safe from detection. The nose of Bandit
jutted into the sky about a mile ahead of them. He motioned toward it,gesturing for Prochaska to go on. The Chief nodded understanding andstruck off.
Crag turned and began climbing a low rocky ridge that now lay betweenhim and Red Dog. He stopped just below its crest and searched for a safevantage point. To his right a serrated rock structure extended up overthe backbone of the ridge. He angled toward it, then followed theoutcropping to a point where he could see the plain beyond. Red Dog hadits tail planted in the ash about three miles distant.
Minute figures milled at its base, small blobs of movement against thecrater floor. No sounds broke the silence of Crag's open interphones. Hetook this as a sign that the Red Dog sets operated on a different band.But he couldn't be sure. The tremendous advantage of havingcommunication with his own men must be discarded.
His vigil was rewarded a few moments later when the blobs around RedDog's base began moving in the direction of the Aztec. It struck himthat they couldn't see the rocket from their present position due tosmall intervening hillocks, although both Baker and Charlie were clearlyvisible. He decided the Aztec's horizontal position had tipped them toits identity while they were still space-borne. One of the Red Dogcrewmen, obviously the leader, drew ahead of his companions. The othertwo seemed to be struggling with some object they carried between them.They moved close together, halting from time to time. He returned hisgaze to the rocket, conjecturing that another crewman would haveremained behind. If so, he was in the space cabin. The ship seemedlifeless. The landing party approached a small ridge overlooking theAztec, bringing them closer to his lookout.
He saw that the two men following the leader were having difficulty withtheir burden. They walked slowly, uncertainly, pausing from time totime. The lead man started up the rocky knoll overlooking the Aztec. Hismovements were slow, wary. He crouched near the top of the ridge,scanning the plain beyond before waving to his companions to follow. Thegesture told Crag that their interphones were disconnected. The crewmennear the base of the knoll started climbing, moving with extremedifficulty. He watched them, wondering, until they reached the leader.They stood for a moment scouting the plain, then two of the men crouchedover the burden they had lugged up the knoll.
A weapon, Crag guessed. He tried to discern its shape but failed. A fewmoments later one of the men stepped back. A puff of white rose from theknoll. A trail of vapor shot toward the Aztec. A portable rocketlauncher! His eyes tracked the missile's flight. The vapor trailterminated at its target. An instant later the Aztec disintegrated.Black chunks of the rocket hurtled into the lunar skies, becoming lostto sight. Within seconds only a jagged few feet of broken torn metalmarked the site of man's first successful landing on the moon. _Wow,what a weapon_, he thought. It didn't merely push a hole in the Aztec.It disintegrated it, completely. That was one for Gotch. He filed thethought away and watched.
The figures on the knoll searched the scene for a long time. Finallythey turned and started back, carrying the rocket launcher with them.The act of saving the weapon told him that Red Dog carried more rocketsthan just the single shot fired--a disconcerting thought.
He cautiously withdrew from his post and picked his way down the ridgetoward Bandit, moving as rapidly as the rough terrain permitted.Everything now depended on the next move of the Red Dog's crew, hethought. One thing was certain--there would be no quarter shown. Theruthless destruction of the Aztec had set the pattern for the comingbattle of Arzachel. It was a declaration of war with all rules of humanwarfare discarded. Well, that was okay with him.
He was breathing heavily by the time he reached a spot overlookingBandit. Nagel had decompressed the cabin and they were waiting for himwith the hatch open. He crossed the clearing and a moment later was inthe space cabin. He watched the gauge until it was safe to cut off hissuit pressure and open his face plate. He looked at Richter; his facewas blank. Tersely, then, he related what had happened.
"I sort of expected that," Prochaska said quietly when he had finished."It was the logical way."
"Logical to attempt to murder men?" Nagel asked bitterly.
"Entirely logical," Crag interjected. "The stakes are too big for a fewhuman lives to matter. At least we've been warned."
He turned to Prochaska. "Disconnect Richter's mikes until this show'sover."
The Chief nodded. Richter stood quietly by while his lip microphone wasdisconnected and withdrawn from the helmet. Nagel's face showedsatisfaction at the act, but Larkwell's expression was wooden.
Crag said, "Defense of Bandit will be under Prochaska's command." Helooked grimly at his second-in-command. "Your fort has one automaticrifle. Make it count if you have to use it." The Chief nodded.
Larkwell spoke up, "How about you?"
"I'll be scouting with the other automatic rifle. Stay in your suits andkeep ready. If they start to bring up the rocket launcher I'll signal.If that happens you'll have to get out of here, pronto. You'd bettercheck your oxygen," he added as an afterthought.
"If they think we're dead ducks they won't be toting the launcher,"Prochaska said.
"We hope." Crag exchanged his oxygen cylinder for a fresh one, thenchecked one of the automatic rifles, slipping two extra clips in hisbelt. On second thought he hooked a spare oxygen cylinder to the backstraps. He nodded to Nagel, snapped his face plate shut and pressurizedhis suit. When the cabin was decompressed, he opened the hatch, scanningthe knoll carefully before descending to the plain. He struck off towardthe ridge overlooking Red Dog. The ground on this side of the spur wasfairly flat and he made good time, but was panting heavily by the timehe reached his lookout point on the crest.