But these belts had shaped attachments from which protruded the grips of what appeared to be some kind of hand-projectors.
If so, these were the first bipeds to be seen bearing arms. That would give them a special status, Beneker decided, and special weapon-bearing status must be viewed as ominous.
But it was the weird manner of their approach that bothered him most. They had no steady pace, fast or slow. At one moment they were walking in a bunch, the next they were running in single file. Two of them went off the road to stalk warily around a tree behind which nothing was concealed, and the other two waited for them. Once or twice they adopted an exceedingly strange gait, a kind of jumping run with knees rising high. It did not get them along any quicker than an ordinary run.
"I do not like this," Beneker admitted to the others. "There is something extraordinary about those four. They are armed and eccentric and that is a highly dangerous combination."
"Do you think they might be coming in search of us?" asked Dith, reaching for his hand-projector.
"I cannot see why they should be. How can they know of our presence?"
Beneker looked again. Now that the four were nearer he could discern that they were a kind of biped unlike those observed before.
Their bearing was self-assured, grim, sharp-eyed and occasionally wary. Their physique was small and compact. Their attire neat and decorative.
They were walking at that moment, but as he watched they again broke into that strange, leg-lifting run, doing it simultaneously as if sharing a group-mind, stringing out one behind the other and heading straight up the middle of the trail.
Then there came a point where something hit Beneker smack in the brain. It landed with such shocking vividness that he gasped, flattened himself to avoid being seen, and kept well down until the four had passed, still at an ungainly, knee-raising run.
Intent solely on whatever was the purpose of their journey, they went by seemingly unconscious of the Neshantans.
Raising himself for a cautious glimpse of the departing figures, Beneker said, "I got a picture out of them! By the space-demon, I got a picture!"
"So did I." Dith's antennas were still quivering. "Their minds don't operate on the same band as the others' minds did, or perhaps they use a wider band, or maybe they are more efficient projectors."
"They were riding," said Beneker, a little pop-eyed. "On quadrupeds. I could even feel the animals' back muscles moving and smell their hides. The first two animals were black and had foam on their faces."
"The third was a kind of spotty gray and the last was mottled brown and white," Dith contributed. "The riders were going ten times as fast as they were really going."
"Shooting along like rockets," confirmed Beneker. He was dazed and worried. "How can it be possible that—?"
"Look!" chipped in Molop, pointing.
They sent quick gazes up the trail, saw that the uniformed quartet had left the route and concealed themselves behind a large rock. From this lower angle they could be seen huddled closely together in the shadow, but to anyone coming down they would be invisible. No more pictures came from them, being too far away.
"Something is about to happen," Beneker decided. He glanced behind to choose his line of escape, and hoped the Mushabs would function as intended.
Hardly had he spoken than another biped appeared over a slight rise, coming from the mountains and toward the village. He was a huge specimen with immense shoulders, a heavy, pugnacious jaw. No hat covered his thick mop of iron-gray curls. His dress was a dark brown one-piece affair with a slide fastener down its front.
Obviously unaware of the ambush, the newcomer marched steadily past the rock, his boots making weighty crunching noises. The armed quartet edged around to keep the rock between themselves and the other, then sprang out onto the trail immediately behind him.
One of them must have made a slight sound, for the big biped threw a startled glance rearward and promptly broke into a run.
The four emitted a bloodthirsty yell and set off in hot pursuit. At top pace the entire bunch of pursuers and pursued went past the Neshantan hideout, giving the crouching watchers a very brief replica of the foaming quadruped vision seen before.
They raced on, the chasers gaining slowly but surely. Beneker had to stick his head right out of the bush to see what was about to happen.
Giving up all hopes of escape, the fleeing biped suddenly stopped, whirled round to face his enemies, made a swift snatching motion with both hands at the region of his thighs. The significance of that was a puzzler, but it brought superswift reaction. With expert precision, the four conjured gleaming instruments into their hands. There sounded several thin cracks, made faint by distance. No smoke, flames or visible rays spurted from the weapons, but the target clapped a hand to his shoulder and reeled back against a tree.
"Space preserve me!" exclaimed Beneker. "They are touchier than the Mushabs." He could not take his eyes away from what was going on.
Surrounding their captive, the four uttered commanding words, made commanding gestures, prodded him with their projectors.
Despite his injuries, he obediently lifted his hands to shoulder height, started toward the village, the others following close behind.
Beneker continued to protrude from the bush like a pornicker mortifying his carcase amid thorns. He watched until captors and captive disappeared into the village. Then and only then did he come to life.
"We are going back to the ship. At once. Tell the Mushabs to pack up and follow without delay."
Safe in his control room, Beneker tapped restless fingers on his desk, waited for Dith to return from his inspection of the vessel.
From time to time he glowered at Molop who sat in a corner and held his peace.
Beneker was bothered, irritable and had the fidgets. This was no time to bait him even though innocently.
Dith came in saying, "Formel is still offbeat with the jittering jilips. But everything else is all right. Clean and shipshape from landing-thumpers to astrodome. She's ready to lift any time you say."
"Then I'll say very soon," responded Beneker. "I have reached a decision about this planet. It is no good. It is a dead loss. We would be wise to forget it and seek something better elsewhere."
"Yes, Commodore, that's how I feel about it."
"You can see what has happened," Beneker went on. "It is what I have feared from the beginning. I have not mentioned it before because there's no point in arousing needless apprehension."
"To what do you refer?"
"A set-up similar to that on Neshanta. A slave world complete with master-types." He sighed, lugged his hand-projector out of its grip, dumped it on the desk, poked it away from him. "What we need, and must find if it can be found, is a world of psychologically suitable dupes waiting for someone to dupe 'em. But nature abhors a vacuum. Demand creates supply. I feel we're going to have a tough time finding a planet-load of dupeless dupes sitting around with their mouths dangling, waiting for us to come along and take them over." He gave Dith a sour eye. "Don't you pass that opinion on to the crew. Let 'em do their own sorting out." "Yes, Commodore."
"Our best chance lies on a slave world bossed by illusionaries inferior to ourselves," Beneker continued. "We can beat the teeth out of lesser types, especially if they're in smaller numbers. But I wouldn't care to try it here. It is a big and crowded planet. Those master-types we encountered at the last moment undoubtedly swarm like gnawers on an unbathed gallumpat. It was fortunate for us that we spotted them in good time. This world is a trap, and a dangerous one."
"Like the pink world," reminded Molop, becoming suddenly garrulous.
"Shut up!" Beneker edged his hand-projector a bit nearer, making it a sinister move. Morbidly he went on as if speaking to himself, "I would never have believed that this world's illusionaries could have such powers had I not seen them for myself."
"They violated all natural laws," indorsed Dith.
"Yes, that is what I cannot underst
and. They could impose their vision on us! What is more, they could do it while remaining unconscious of our existence. That is real power!" He mulled it over. "But that isn't all. Incredible as it may seem, they could construct illusions of such immense strength and potency that they could live in them themselves." His gaze rested on Dith. "Could you enjoy a convincing existence inside one of your own dreams?"
"Not in a million years."
"Neither could any other master-Neshantan. A dreammaker is proof against dreams. That's an inviolable law—and they've shot it to a stink-star!" His expression showed that he regarded law-smashing as a personal affront. "So, having abilities we don't possess, they've developed a different set-up. They don't bother to keep their slaves happy in phantasmal heavens. They enjoy the heavens themselves and rule their slaves by force. That means they are well-armed and utterly ruthless."
"They looked mighty tough to me," said Dith.
"I do not like them," Beneker declared. "Not one little bit. I am going to cross this world from our list of possible conquests. In fact, I'm going to delete this whole solar system. We'll take off forthwith and try some other sun."
"That's just what I've been wanting all along," Dith reminded. "I'll be glad to get out of this place."
Molop opened his mouth, whereupon Beneker picked up his projector, flourished it and growled, "If you say what I think you have in mind to say, there's going to be a terrible accident." He paused, finished, "I would deplore a terrible accident."
"I, likewise," said Molop, and got away with it.
The counter-gravs operated. The Neshantan vessel slid silently into the night. It never came back.
The big biped trod heavily down the village stem, two paces ahead of his escort, a suitably surly expression on his face. Captive and captors stopped only when they came level with the barber shop whose occupant was leaning on the doorpost, chewing a toothpick, studying them speculatively.
"Well, Bill," said the barber to the leader of the escort. "I see you got the low-down, lily-livered skunk."
"We sure did," agreed Bill. He pointed his weapon eastward. "Caught him coming down the mountain trail."
"Nice work." Taking out the toothpick, the barber stared at its ragged end, put it back. "Ain't much use doing half a job, though."
"What d'you mean?"
"Ain't much use pinning him down while his mob runs loose."
"You seen 'em?" Bill stiffened, watching the other keen-eyed.
'Tup. Must've known you were coming. They skinned out fast half a minute back." He pointed down the road. "They went thata-ways."
Bill poked the captive toward the shop. "You take care of him." He turned to his alert companions. "C'mon, let's after 'em!"
Weapons held ready, the four raced headlong down the road, skidded around the far corner and were gone.
Thankfully lowering his arms, the captive sat on the bench out-
side the shop, pulled an enormous pipe from his pocket, slowly stuffed it with tobacco.
"I'd appreciate it, Lou," he said to the barber, "if you'd hold off calling me a low-down, lily-livered skunk. Them's fightin words."
"Yah!" scoffed the barber. He gave the toothpick an expert shift from left to right, looked down at the other. "Jesse, don't you ever get sick and tired being shot up by them kids?"
"Kids? What kids?" The local blacksmith felt himself for matches. "I didn't see no kids." He applied a flame, his cheeks going hollow as he sucked. "That was Wyatt Earp and his posse." The glance he shot upward was shrewd and penetrating. "Remember?"
The barber stared down the road and gradually a faraway look came into his eyes. After a while, he said, very quietly, "Yeah, Jesse, I remember."
V^/ UR FIRST stride into space is to the Moon, for the dead Luna is an important way station on Man's journey across the solar system. A Terran explorer trapped on one of its deadly stone deserts might well break under the realization of his situation. It required a wiU of steel to face the full menace of the Moon at its most forbidding. Hansen proved in a crisis that he possessed just that—as well as a pair of willing, if weary, feet.
H. B. FYFE
The radio operator stopped sending out his call and slumped back in the folding chair of canvas and aluminum. Concern showed through the impassivity of his broad, Mexican features.
The footsteps in the corridor outside the radio room pattered lightly because of the Lunar gravity, but with a haste that suggested urgency. Two men entered. Like the operator, they wore dungarees and heavy sweaters, but the gray-haired man had an air of authority.
"Dr. Burney wanted to check with you himself, Mike," said the youth with him. The operator shrugged.
"Tractor One is okay, Doctor," he reported, "but as Joey must have told you, we've lost Two."
"When was the last time they called in?" asked Bumey.
Mike gestured at the map on the side wall, and the elder man stepped over to study it. The area shown was that surrounding the fifty-mile-wide crater of Archimedes.
"The blue line is One and the red is Two," said Mike. "I guess you know the planned routes. Well, the little x's show the positions reported and the times."
Burney glanced briefly at the blue line. From the black square near the northern side of the crater that represented the first major base on Luna, it climbed slantingly over the ringwall. After zigzagging down the broken outer slope and skirting a ridge of vein mountains, the line swept in a wide curve north of Aristillus and Autolycus, the next largest craters of the region, and moved into that subregion of the Mare Imbrium whimsically christened "Misty Swamp." Thereafter, the blue trail led toward possible passes through the Lunar Apennines to the Mare Serenitatis.
"I could expect to lose One," muttered the operator, "in spite of our tower here. But Two shouldn't be blocked by anything yet."
The red line was more direct. Parting from the blue north of the ringwall of Archimedes, it pushed out across the level plain, avoiding isolated mountain ridges and the seven-mile craters of Kirch and Piazza Smyth. After something like three hundred miles, it passed the towering lonely Mt. Pico and probed a dotted delta of possible routes up the ringwall of Plato. This route was x'ed almost to Pico.
"They were supposed to report before attempting the descent," mused Burney. "Maybe the depression of the Mare Imbrium isn't quite what we estimated. The normal curvature would put a lot of rock between us, in that case. An awful lot of rock."
"Maybe they went over the ringwall in a hurry," suggested Joey.
Burney considered that in a short silence. He ran a hand absently over his balding temple. His lean face became a mask of lines as he puckered up his eyes in thought.
"Number Two has Hansen driving, hasn't it? And Groswald, the mechanic ... Van Ness, the astronomer . . . and who else?"
"Fernandez from Geology," said Joey.
The entire personnel of the base numbered scarcely fifty. They were just beginning their surface exploration projects after completing the low domes of their buildings. With such scanty resources, Burney was naturally worried about four men and one of the precious tractors.
"They were with us an hour ago," said Mike, fingering his microphone. "Their set must have gone sour."
When no one replied, he hitched around to face his own controls. "Or else, they're in trouble—"
On the ledge atop the ringwall of Plato, Hansen teetered and tried to maintain his balance by pressing a gauntleted hand against an outcropping of gray Lunar rock. The thermal-eroded surface crumbled slightly beneath the metal-tipped mitten.
In his bulky spacesuit, he found it difficult to lean very far forward, but he could not bear not seeing. The landship tumbled down the inner slope of the ringwall with horrible deliberation.
"I told them 'Don't move her till I find a way downl'" Hansen muttered. "I told them, I told them!"
He was hardly conscious of speaking aloud. Somewhere in the churning mass was the vacuum tractor in which he had driven from Archimedes. Inside, unless it had alrea
dy been split open„ were Van Ness, Groswald, and Fernandez.
The collection of loose rock and dust passed out of sight for a moment over the edge of a terrace. It reappeared further down. Once, Hansen thought he saw a glint of bright metal, but the slide almost immediately plunged down another sheer drop.
The phase of Luna being closer to "new" than to "first quarter," the sun was far too low on the horizon to light the floor of the crater, or even the three mountain peaks on the ringwall to Hansen's right front. The light from the gibbous Earth, however, was bright enough for him to see quite clearly the surface around him.
The slide finally reached the bottom, at this point nearly 3,000 feet below the man's precarious position. He breathed deeply and tried to straighten the ache from his shoulders.
"Must have taken five minutes," he murmured, realizing that he had frozen in a cramped position as he stared.
It had seemed more like an hour. In the dim shadows of the crater floor, the dust settled rapidly because of the lack of air, but the debris remained heaped at an angle much steeper than would have been possible on Earth. Even the slight vibration Hansen had felt through his boots ceased.
He was alone in the dead silence of a world for eons dead.
He stood there, a spot of color in the chrome yellow of the protective chafing suit. The transparent faceplate of his unpainted helmet revealed a blond young man, perhaps twenty-six, with a lean, square-jawed face. Against the tanned skin, his eyebrows were ludicrously light, but the gray eyes under them were wide with horror.
He was of medium height, but the bulkiness of the suit hid his welterweight trimness; and the pack of oxygen tank and batteries for powering radio, heat pads, and air-circulator increased the appearance of stubbiness.
The quiet hiss of the air being circulated through his suit finally aroused him. With painstaking care, he climbed from the ledge to the level terrace on which the tractor was to have remained while he scouted the route down. A hundred yards away, a great bite seemed to have been snapped out of the ridge.