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First on the Moon

<h2>CHAPTER 7</h2> If Colonel Michael Gotch were worried, he didn't show it. He puffed complacently on his black briar pipe watching and listening to the leathery-faced man across from him. His visitor was angular, about sixty, with gray-black hair and hard-squinted eyes. A livid scar bit deep into his forehead; his mouth was a cold thin slash in his face. He wore the uniform of a Major General in the United States Air Force. The uniform did not denote the fact that its wearer was M.I.—Military Intelligence. His name was Leonard Telford. "So that's the way it looks," General Telford was saying. "The enemy is out to get Arzachel at all costs. Failing that, they'll act to keep us from it." "They wouldn't risk war," Gotch stated calmly. "No, but neither would we. That's the damnable part of it," the General agreed. "The next war spells total annihilation. But for that very reason they can engage in sabotage and hostile acts with security of knowledge that we won't go to war. Look at them now—the missile attack on the Aztec, the time bomb plant, the way they operate their networks right in our midst. Pure audacity. Hell, they've even got an agent en route to the moon. On our rocket at that." The Colonel nodded uncomfortably. The presence of a saboteur on the Aztec represented a bungle in his department. The General was telling him so in a not too gentle way. "I seem to recall I was in Astrakhan myself a few years back," he reminded. "Oh, sure, we build pretty fair networks ourselves," the General said blandly. He looked at Gotch and a rare smile crossed his face. "How did you like the dancing girls in Gorik's, over by the shore?" Gotch looked startled, then grinned. "Didn't know you'd ever been that far in, General." "Uh-huh, same time you were." "Well, I'll be damned," Gotch breathed softly. There was a note of respect in his voice. The General was silent for a moment. "But the Caspian's hot now." "Meaning?" "Warheads—with the name Arzachel writ large across the nose cones." He eyed Gotch obliquely. "If we secure Arzachel first, they'll blow it off the face of the moon." They looked at each other silently. Outside a jet engine roared to life. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> The moon filled the sky. It was gigantic, breath-taking, a monstrous sphere of cratered rock moving in the eternal silence of space with ghostly-radiance, heedless that a minute mote bearing alien life had entered its gravitational field. It moved in majesty along its orbit some 2,300 miles every hour, alternately approaching to within 222,000 miles of its Earth Mother, retreating to over 252,000 miles measuring its strides by some strange cosmic clock. The Apennines, a rugged mountain range jutting 20,000 feet above the planet's surface, was clearly visible. It rose near the Crater Eratosthenes, running northwest some 200 miles to form the southwest boundary of Mare Imbrium. The towering Leibnitz and Dorfel Mountains were visible near the edge of the disc. South along the terminator, the border between night and day, lay Ptolemaeus, Alphons, and Arzachel. Crag and Prochaska studied its surface, picking out the flat areas which early astronomers had mistaken for seas and which still bore the names of seas. The giant enclosure Clavius, the lagoon-like Plato and ash-strewn Copernicus held their attention. Crag studied the north-south line along which Arzachel lay, wondering again if they could seek out such a relatively small area in the jumbled, broken, twisted land beneath them. At some 210,000 miles from earth the Aztec had decelerated to a little over 300 miles per hour. Shortly after entering the moon's gravisphere it began to accelerate again. Crag studied the enemy rocket riding astern. It would be almost abreast them in short time, off to one side of the silver drone. It, too, was accelerating. "Going to be nip and tuck," he told Prochaska. 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, philosophers 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, Prochaska, Larkwell and Nagel. The latter two were peering through the side ports. Prochaska and Crag shared the forward panel. It was a tribute to the event that no word was spoken. Aside from the Chief's 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 Chief's job to handle the drone landings, 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. Larkwell's job was to construct an airlock in one of the rills from durable lightweight prefabricated plastiblocks 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. Prochaska 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." Prochaska grinned. He flexed his arms experimentally. Larkwell 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." Larkwell gave a weak experimental jump and promptly 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 fervently 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 cumbersome 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 corrections 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 slightly behind 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. "Warhead!" 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 softly. "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 than 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." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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