by Jimmy Guieu
In the face of this imminent danger no one had any plans to wander off! The whole team, therefore, was together around the two rockets. The ramp had been sticking out of the safe zone, so it was rapidly dismantled to keep away from the monsters’ corrosive attack.
The six reflectors surrounding the camp were all facing the sun, perpendicular to its rays. Professor Harrington stood in front of the control panel next to the generator providing the energy to the motor-blocs. He slowly turned a knob activating the reflectors, which all together swivel slightly on their axis before lowering a few degrees.
Like six blinding maws they became impossible to look at, even from the side where a crescent of light would rip through the retina. A bright conic beam—concentrated solar rays—shot out of their axis. The beam covered a surface of the ground exactly ten feet in diameter. These bright “spots” did not have the same temperature at every point. Their edges were obviously less hot than the center where the convergence of rays reached its optimal point.
The whole set-up, therefore, around the rockets poured out six torrents of thermal rays reaching 3,500C. However, it did not form a “closed” circle. A blank space of almost 50 feet separated each burning center. To compensate for this serious inconvenience Professor Harrington proposed a “corrective” method:
“I just synchronized the six parabolic reflectors. By turning this knob halfway round to the right, then halfway to the left, the thermal rays will sweep over a 50-foot area from one end to the other where the six beams are now on the ground. This will surround the base with a heat circle. The half-turns from right to left will obviously leave some area open at any given second but the interruption will be so brief that we don’t have to worry about it. The Selenites are not fast enough to get through the space in one second anyway. Whatever gets into the area left open by the sweeping beam will be destroyed one second later when the beam comes back.”
Lieutenant Clark was lost in thought and spoke probably to himself but the microphone broadcast it to everyone else. “And after?”
“What do you mean, Clark?” Harrington was surprised.
Shaken out of his reverie, the Lieutenant explained, “I’m just wondering what we’ll do after the attack, supposing that the Selenites are defeated and driven back. Are we supposed to live on the Moon forever threatened by a new attack from these nasty creatures? In the future we’ll have to surround a permanent base with a protective system that is continually heated up.”
“Unless we discover a radical way to exterminate the Selenites, which is what we’ll have to do… as well as whoever comes after us to live in the permanent lunar base that Mickey brought to us,” Professor Harrington responded.
“Rudy’s wise observation leads to another,” Kariven wrinkled his forehead. “This high temperature ring will be built with the machines of a permanent base and work constantly thanks to giant reflectors or a separate device that can create its own source of heat rays. But for us this protective ring won’t last forever because it depends on the sun. Now, in four Earth hours, this side of the Moon will turn to night that will last 14 days!”
His cruel logic literally stunned the astronauts. In fact, when the sun set on the horizon the reflectors would be deprived of its rays and instantly stop shooting their heat beams at the Selenites.
“Once the lunar night is here,” Kariven continued, “we won’t be able to protect the base with the torches for 336 hours. Long before the next daybreak we’ll have run out of fluoride, oxygen and helium for the torches. Therefore, the problem is this: either we find a way to exterminate the monsters completely within four days and continue preparations for a future permanent base or we don’t, in which case we’ll have to gather up all the material already unloaded and leave the Moon to its metallophage inhabitants. And Operation Aphrodite will live on! But how many years will pass before we can come back to our satellite with a squadron of spaceships?
“See, there’s no way we can think of coming back with a single rocket followed by the supply rocket 53 hours later. We’ll have to land with at least ten giant ships able to transport a base that can be quickly assembled and… permanently defended. We’ll have to be able to build a base in less than 14 days, i.e. one lunar day.”
The radar man, Gordon, perched on top of the radar antenna, cried out in alarm, waving his binoculars. “They’re here! They’re here! Good God… It’s… It’s like the whole planet is rippling! There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, everywhere as far as the eye can see… A horrible, brown, moving carpet…”
“Everyone to their post!” Commander Taylor shouted. “Harrington, get ready on your parabala… your parabola… your ray guns!” he muddled.
The crater where the Russians had been unlucky enough to build their base was closer to the libration zone than the American base set up on the plain next to the Kepler crater. Therefore, it was closer on the path of the Selenites crawling to these two rich sources of metal.
Terrified at the sight of the nasty creatures spilling over the rim of the crater, Petrov gave the alarm. With his two men he passed the fluoride tanks through the tear in the spaceship. Using a cable, 50 of the cylinders were brought down in record time. On the ground six astronauts stood together, torches ready to fire, while the other men carried the rations and water out of the rocket to the base where the center of resistance had been organized.
Zavkom was busy like the others with the preparations. With three men he got the cases of rations safely into the base before they all armed themselves with torches.
The Selenites were only 50 yards from the Russians and were advancing relentlessly, gradually closing in their ranks. Like some menacing flow of brown lava the monsters came closer, surging and swelling. The purple shells of the giant Selenites would sometimes flash a brief luminescence, a kind of rhythmic pulse, mesmerizing in the rough, desolate crater. Now they were less than ten feet from the Earthlings.
“Fire!” Zavkom cried out in a raspy voice and all 11 torches spit their purple flames at the ground.
The first row of Selenites was stopped in its tracks. The next row, trying to advance, pushed the motionless shells but was stopped by this unexpected obstacle. There was a moment of hesitation, then the giant monsters sped up the rhythm of their light pulses and the push continued. The corpses were shoved away and new attackers crawled into the empty spaces. Once again the jets of flame nailed them to the ground.
“Shoot in spurts!” Zavkom ordered. “We have to conserve the Fluoride. Petrov, climb into the rocket and see if the shortwave transmitter is still working. If so, call Kaluga and explain the situation. Our only chance of survival is for them to send us the second rocket… if it’s ready with extra torches and tanks. Do it now!”
Petrov gave his torch to Professor Ilyine and a minute later was climbing up the rocket tilted 45 over the base.
While pointing the flame of his torch at the monsters Colonel Zavkom grunted, “We made a fatal mistake coming to this crater. If the astronavigraph weren’t damaged we would have had time to explore the region and probably found these weird and dangerous inhabitants of the craters. If we set up on the top of a hill, for example, it’d be a lot easier to defend ourselves.”
Petrov was soon bounding back. He grabbed his torch and while shooting at the monsters answered the unasked questions of his comrades whose anxious eyes were staring at him.
“I reached the Kaluga base… Rocket number two won’t be ready for… three weeks.”
“Three weeks!” Zavkom exploded. “But… we’ll be dead before that! Why so late?”
“The factories that were supposed to deliver the radars and the guiding system to Kaluga didn’t meet their deadlines.”
A string of curses echoed in everyone’s helmet thanks to Colonel Zavkom.
“It’s unbelievable! We’re on the most fantastic conquest in human history and while we’re risking our lives on the Moon—for the greater glory of the USSR—these industrialists are late with de
liveries! And we see this kind of carelessness, this sloppiness, this waste on every level, social and industrial. The Russian people deserve a new revolution without thinking about the bureaucrats…”
Petrov, bitterly continuing to spit fire, was spurred on, “We’re definitely going to leave our corpses on this dirty rock, Colonel, so allow me to say today what I really think about your doctrinal concept of bureaucrats. Don’t you see that if a new revolution broke out in Russia, it’s the people who would suffer from it? Revolutions have never been made by the bureaucrats. On the contrary, it’s against them that they come about, with or without legitimate reason by whoever embraces it. And I am…”
“You’re a traitor,” Zavkom broke in calmly. “A traitor to the soviet doctrine… but you’re a traitor who’s going to die with the rest of us and so I’ll allow you to talk like this.” Zavkom paused before mumbling a conclusion, “Because you’re speaking the truth anyway.”
The pilot Petrov was taken aback, casting sidelong glances at his chief. He had trouble swallowing and was impressed to find in this brutal, severe man the spirit of justice stripped of prejudice.
He mumbled back, “Thanks, Colonel… For the first time we’re in agreement.”
A shout of rage suddenly screamed in their helmets. Professor Ilyine’s torch had just gone out, without explanation, and the monsters were taking advantage of this “hole” in the ring of flames. They rushed over the corpses. Petrov stepped over and while the physicist was examining the burner he swept over a wider surface with his own to cut off the invaders.
Using a bent steel rod the Professor cleaned off the super-metal burner, thinking this was the cause of the damage.
“The tube must’ve got blocked when you changed tanks,” Petrov suggested, jumping bravely forward to attack the swarming mass of Selenites.
“I think so too,” the scientist agreed. “Something got in there and blocked the…” He did not finish because the ground shook beneath him.
The steel tank feeding fluoride to the physicist’s torch had exploded! A crack in its interior protective coating had probably done it and the corrosive fluoride had eaten through the reinforced metal that finally snapped under the heavy pressure. Metal fragments flew off in all directions, scattering like grenade fragments, killing Professor Ilyine and smashing the helmets of three men who died immediately with their skulls crushed.
Colonel Zavkom and Petrov, being a little farther away than the others, were thrown up by the suddenly released gas and fell back down on the other side of the base, but they were not hit.
Petrov got up, stumbled a little, dizzily, and picked up his torch that had gone out at the moment of the explosion. He got ready to start firing again but in his daze he saw that Colonel Zavkom was still on the ground, on his back. In one leap he was next to him. The officer’s eyes were dilated, his mouth open, trying with difficulty to say something but no sound came through the pilot’s helmet. His face suddenly turned purplish-red. Petrov immediately understood what was happening. He picked up his chief and in a few leaps brought him to the decompression chamber. He pushed him into the tube, lay down on him after locking the outside hatch and finally opened the inner hatch. Since the tube was only meant for one person at a time, it seemed like it took forever to do this.
Finally he pulled the Colonel into the first dome and quickly tore off his helmet. Zavkom’s face was flushed. It took him 20 minutes to come around while Petrov gave him oxygen and performed artificial respiration.
“Thank you,” the Russian officer wheezed.
“Don’t talk,” Petrov ordered, gladly forgetting that he was addressing his superior.
A faint smile relaxed the latter’s face. Petrov examined the helmet closely but found nothing out of the ordinary. However, on the spacesuit’s shoulder he found what he was looking for. A metal shard from the exploded tank had hit the thick protective material and made a cut less than an inch long, but enough for the artificial air to escape and suffocate the wearer.
“You almost didn’t make it, Colonel,” he said.
The officer got slowly to his feet, still feeling light-headed and dizzy. He leaned against the transparent wall and putting his right hand on his rescuer’s shoulder told him, “Thank you, Petrov. I was wrong before to treat you like…”
“Bah, you weren’t thinking, Colonel.”
“It’s true, I wasn’t thinking. You’re a hero.”
Colonel Zavkom struggled free of his damaged spacesuit and put on one of the extras. Fitting the helmet onto the collar he spoke through the mic, “Let’s go, Petrov. We’ve still got a few hours to live. Let’s not waste it moaning and groaning. Let’s kill as many of these damn monsters as we can!”
On the lunar soil the seven survivors reformed their chain and armed with torches threw themselves heroically into the fray, fighting fiercely all the while knowing that they would never escape from the monsters.
When Petrov’s fluoride tank ran out he dragged another to his side. His hands shook as he hooked it up and went back to cooking the army of purple creatures now overwhelming them. All of a sudden a cloud of dust surrounded them. Surprised, he turned around. A thick spray of chalky ash hit his helmet. He wiped it off to see where the avalanche of dust was coming from.
An urgent shout told him. “The Selenites have got through to the base! The artificial air is escaping!”
So, that was it! The air was streaming out of the base, whirling up the dust that had surrounded Petrov.
Under the three transparent domes a column of monsters was already wriggling through a crack, sticking to all the metal surfaces, corroding the equipment, the supplies, bursting the water containers and the rectangular armor protecting the generators and air conditioners.
Petrov and Zavkom looked at each other with great sadness, feeling powerless rage and spite. The seven astronauts, torches in hand, picked up the tanks and leaped over to one of the still intact domes. They exchanged looks of resignation, stood close together, and without saying a word, jaws clenched, eyes glinting with hatred for this larval form of life that was destroying their expedition, they shot their flames at the monsters. They would fight until their tanks ran out… or their air supply.
“Goodbye, Zavkom,” the pilot muttered through his microphone.
“Goodbye, Petrov,” he responded. “I’m sorry we never got to be friends…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Professor Harrington flipped a switch on his control panel and the six parabolic reflectors, tilted at the desired angle, shot their beams at the dusty ground: six spots of blinding light materialized.
Then the physicist used the dial to direct the reflectors, turning to the right and left. Continually, precisely, he accomplished his task. The six impact zones of concentrated solar rays grazed the first rows of rippling monsters.
“Hurray!” the American astronauts cheered. “It’s working beautifully!”
“Look at them squirm!” Lieutenant Clark smiled. “They’re quivering a little and will soon be joining their ancestors.”
Streiler, first unconsciously then with curiosity, was watching Kariven who looked worried at the initial encouraging results; his mind was elsewhere. He seemed preoccupied, sunk in a well of thoughts that maybe had something to do with their present condition but were nonetheless far different from everybody else’s thoughts.
Staring at some imaginary point beyond the zone being swept by the lethal rays Kariven paid no attention to the engineer next to him. When he heard the familiar voice echoing through his helmet he jumped.
“What’s cooking, friend?” Streiler asked amiably.
A fleeting expression of annoyance crossed Kariven’s face, then looking straight into Streiler’s eyes, he turned his mic to “personal” communication and answered, “Your innocent question, Kurt, shows your insight. Something is, in fact, ‘cooking,’ since the day that Clark saw that light in the Aristarchus crater. My first thought, my suspicion I should say, was confirmed when we witne
ssed the inexplicable phenomenon on the dark side of the Moon.”
“You mean the kind of glowing orb in the crater that disappeared and left behind a huge hole?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t see what all these mysterious happenings…”
Kariven raised his hand to interrupt. “Listen, old friend, do you trust me?”
“Do you have to ask?” the other shrugged.
“OK, then come with me and let’s ask Clark to come with us in the space taxis to the Aristarchus crater.”
“No problem seeing that he’s wanted to go out there since he got here. But I don’t know if the Commander shares his desire… or ours.”
“It’s absolutely necessary that we get to that crater. Our lives depend on it… I can feel it.”
Streiler raised an eyebrow, looked astonished and said, “You… feel it? Hey, Kariven, check to see if your air isn’t being blocked. Sometimes that can make you feel funny. Delirium, for example. Joking aside, you don’t really believe in omens and all that hocus pocus, do you?”
Kariven held back an angry reaction and forced himself to stay calm. “I was never so serious, Kurt. The base can defend itself without us. As long as the sun is shining, that is, for another 24 hours on this hemisphere. Do you want to go with me and Clark, yes or no?”
“OK, OK. You know very well that we’re on the same team,” Streiler muttered. “I trust you.”
“Good, let’s go get Clark.”
Ten minutes later the three men stood before the Commander. Kariven spoke with no emotion. “The protection system looks like it’s working, Commander.”
“Working great… if the waves of attack don’t start doing what they just did,” he complained.
Streiler was confused and asked what he meant.
“The giant Selenites were trying to dig tunnels under the pile of dwarf corpses. Twice they came out of the ground, unexpectedly, inside the zone of solar rays! We fried them with torches… If they use this tactic more often, we might be invaded sooner or later. There’re only nine of us and that’s not enough to fight off an attack that could come out of 50 or 100 burrows. Plus, the solar rays can’t be used outside or inside the camp where they might fry one of us, not to mention the danger of destroying our equipment.”
