The Lotus Caves

by John Christopher

  Steve handed him the metal sphere of the beacon and he slotted the tape spool into place. He checked for transmission and then, consulting his finger-watch, set the time. He dropped the sphere into the shaft of the small disposal lock, buttoned the air out into the crawler’s general supply, and pressed the button which opened the other end. The sphere came into view in the side observation window, rolling down a slight slope. It stopped after a few yards.

  “Ready to move?” he asked Steve.

  The palms of his hands were sweating despite the air-conditioned atmosphere. He rubbed them surreptitiously on his trousers.

  “Sure,” Steve said. “You want to carry on driving?”

  “We could do the usual shifts.”

  They knew the routine for two-man crawlers on extended patrols. Two hours on duty, two off, for eight hours, followed by two six-hour shifts to enable the person not driving to get some sleep in the bunk that was built into one wall.

  Steve nodded. “I’ll start by map-reading, then.”

  Not long afterward the Earth rocket flashed in the sky, settling on its flame-tail into the launch basin. They paid no attention to it.

  • • •

  The pass they wanted was less than half a mile farther on, past a jutting spur of rock that was clearly marked on the map. Steering the crawler up into it, Marty had a last glimpse of the Bubble behind them, its top gleaming in the sunlight. His nervousness had left him through having to concentrate on driving. He had previously only handled crawlers on the more or less flat plateau around the Bubble and the incline before them was steep in places. The tracks bit well enough to begin with, but farther on there was a place where they could not get sufficient purchase and the crawler slipped and skidded backward. He engaged the climbing spikes and tried again. This time, with the sharp steel claws emerging from the tracks to grip and hold the rock, it went up with no difficulty. The slope flattened again and he retracted the spikes. Their points were of specially hardened steel, but it was important to avoid unnecessary wear on them.

  The sun not being very high, they lost it almost at once in the narrow defile through which they were climbing. Marty drove by light reflected from the dazzling walls of sunlit rock high above them. The crawlers were fitted with powerful headlight beams but he did not need to use them. Beside him Steve followed their course on the map.

  “Looks straightforward,” he said. “We’re definitely heading the right way. That zigzag followed by a right-angled turn . . . and the pass broadens out just ahead.”

  “What comes after?”

  “You take the left fork half a mile on. Then it’s fairly straight for something like ten miles. But the contour lines are close—you may need spikes.”

  They sat side by side in silence, watching the walls close in and then recede. Straightforward, certainly. Maybe dull in due course, but for the moment there was novelty in it, a pleasant tension, a feeling that each new vista might reveal something strange. And where the pass broadened to a valley wide enough and at the right angle for the sun’s rays to penetrate, it did. Steve drew Marty’s attention to a gleam of metal away to the right. He headed the crawler that way. It was impossible that they could have chanced on something unknown, of course—the route was marked on the map and had been ­traveled probably hundreds of times already—but there was a tingle of anticipation all the same.

  A moment later he recognized the metal for what it was: a broken and discarded rock drill. Someone had been taking samples here. The rock face showed core holes in a number of places. There were other signs of activity, including several empty food containers. Seeing them reminded Marty that several hours had elapsed since breakfast. He mentioned this to Steve, who said: “Yes. And I guess I’m cook. What would you like? Moon-rabbit roasted on a spit, with baked potatoes? Or how about a nice fresh lunar salmon, cooked in the hot embers of a campfire? Pull over to the nearest stream and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Rabbit and salmon came into the very long list of things known through TV and through TV only. Potatoes were grown in the Bubble but were treats for special occasions: there were more economical ways of producing starch.

  Steve rummaged in the food locker and came up with two cans.

  “Or would you like minced chicken mush with artificial flavoring? Because that’s what you’re going to get.” He pulled the tag to operate the chemical heater. “But done to a turn, I promise you that.”

  “Sounds great,” Marty said.

  “We can even have music with it. The last time I looked it was the Pacific facing us up there. We could try for some of that Oriental jazz from Tokyo.”

  He switched the radio on and began searching the dial. He found a couple of weak stations, talking, and a still weaker one playing music through a barrier of static. Then he said: “I suppose we could check the service channel. See if they’re calling us to come back yet.”

  He clicked in to the Control frequency. There was no direct radio communication beyond the very short horizon range but the orbiting satellites circling the Moon picked up signals and bounced them back. Someone was talking to a crawler heading for the mines, a routine message. Steve said: “Either they’ve not missed us or they’re not bothered. I suppose we could leave it on this channel?”

  There had been a sick feeling in the pit of Marty’s stomach which was only slightly subsiding as the even, routine voice on the radio continued to talk. It was one thing to evade regulations, quite another to defy an order openly.

  He said: “Do we have to?”

  “No,” Steve said. He switched off. “I don’t suppose we do. I think those barbecued steaks must be about ready.”

  4

  First Station

  WHEN STEVE TOOK OVER DRIVING, Marty was able to study the map at leisure. You could read it while you were driving, but only really effectively by means of the map screen which picked out and illuminated a sector at a time according to the way you moved the wind knob. In fact they had not bothered to put it through the screen; Steve had kept it spread out on a table.

  It was as simple as Steve had said. From the small circle marking the Bubble it was easy to trace their route up through the foothills to their present position, and as easy to follow it onward to the point where it doglegged between two peaks and stood over above the plain and the cross marking First Station. The last bit was through a warren of cross-hatchings which could have been confusing except that they would be on the short run down to their destination: any downward path took one to the plain from which one would see the dome of the station. The descent was shown as steep: they would need the spikes for braking. Not that it would matter if the crawler did lose adhesion and slid down. These vehicles were toughly built and well sprung to cope with minor impacts.

  Simple, but slow. On a level, easy surface a crawler could make fifteen or twenty miles an hour. In terrain like the present a third of that would be good going. They were two hours on their way, out of something like fifty. There were going to be dull patches during that time.

  They settled into a routine, taking turns on the controls and the map. After eight hours there was the first rest period. Steve proposed throwing dice for who slept first but Marty insisted that, having taken the first short stint, he must also take the first long one. Steve did not argue but yawned and crawled into the bunk, zipping the curtain which ran the full length and left him in a soundproofed and specially padded cocoon. The alarm was set to waken him in six hours. During that period Marty was on his own.

  They were high, but still climbing. The crawler was heading along a fairly straight defile with the sun hidden but the Earth a luminous crescent almost centrally above. The part he could see appeared to be covered with cloud. He wondered what it must be like—those short days that started, perhaps, in sunshine . . . and then the sun being hidden, rain falling. He had seen it, of course, on films but that wasn’t like feeling it. Feel
ing rain, for instance . . . drops of water, millions of them, falling out of the sky.

  It was all there, above him but a quarter of a million miles away. The thought of that distance, normally taken for granted, was suddenly over­powering. He was contemplating it not from the familiar confines of the Bubble but through the observation panel of this tiny, lurching machine, making its staggering way through mountains that had never known cloud or rain, for thousands on thousands of years.

  He switched on the radio for company and found a fairly strong station playing what he recognized as some kind of opera. It lasted for a quarter of an hour before fading. He searched for another, but could not find one worth listening to. They were all so tiny and distorted that the sound merely emphasized his isolation. He let his fingers rest on the switch that would put the set on Control frequency. He had a great urge to hear a voice he knew. But if the voice were ordering him to turn the crawler around and come back? The thought made him feel a little weak at the knees. He snapped the radio off, and concentrated on the track in front of him.

  Gradually he grew more accustomed to being alone. Halfway through the shift he took a hot drink and a packet of concentrate-cookies and, making another search for Earth stations, found one that was strong and fairly steady. A man with an accent which Marty recognized as Australian was giving a cricket commentary. Lunarians had no interest in games that took up large areas of space and he knew nothing at all about cricket, but it was comforting to listen to.

  “McAndrew is coming up to bowl, slow left hand, round the wicket . . . he tosses it right up and Barlow takes it on his pads, outside the leg stump. It runs away and Janutschek comes in from short square leg to pick it up. That’s the end of the over, taking the England score to five for a hundred and nine, and yes, I think there’s going to be an appeal against the light. The umpires are consulting. But they’re not coming in. Shelton has the ball to bowl from the Pavilion end. He’s marking out his run now . . . thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen paces. Pinkard takes guard. Shelton is coming in to bowl . . .”

  An appeal against the light presumably meant that a cloud was so darkening the sky that the batsmen might not be able to see the ball properly. The crawler came out onto a wide shelf of rock and abruptly was in sunshine. It dazzled Marty’s eyes until he buttoned the dimming blind into position.

  • • •

  At the end of six hours the bell pinged on both sides of the bunk curtain and a few moments later Steve emerged, rubbing his eyes. Marty showed him their position on the map, told him there was nothing to report, and took his place in the bunk. He zipped the curtain, snapped out the light, and stretched out exhausted on the mattress. The springs and foam padding beneath him converted the jolting of the crawler into a gentle soporific rocking. Not, he felt as he drifted into sleep, that he needed any rocking. His eyes ached from the strain of watching the trail of rock unfold. He could not remember ever feeling so tired.

  He came awake gradually and was surprised to find that he was lying in darkness. He could not recall hearing the alarm, and anyway it should have automatically put the light on. Had he woken up before time? Yet he felt fully refreshed.

  He found and pressed the light switch and looked at his finger-watch. Nearly a quarter past eight. The alarm had been set for six. Did that mean that something had gone wrong . . . ? The tracker was in motion though, steadily lurching along. Marty unzipped the curtain and tumbled out into the cabin.

  Steve turned from the controls and said: “Hi.”

  “The alarm didn’t work. You should have called me.” He saw the alarm switch on the cabin side; it was in the off position. “That was set when I went to bed. Did you turn it off?”

  “I thought you might as well have your sleep out. You looked beat.”

  He knew it was unreasonable, but felt angry. Steve showing his superiority: he could make out on the six-hour bunk time that was standard on patrols but Marty was presumed not to be up to it. He said sharply: “Why was I supposed to be any more beat than you?”

  “You’d been awake six hours longer, hadn’t you? You insisted on taking the first long shift.”

  That was true enough. His anger cooled, but left some resentment. He said: “Don’t do it again without telling me. All right?”

  Steve grinned. “As you like, skipper. How do you feel about making us some breakfast? Sunny-side eggs and crisp grilled bacon. It’s the can in the corner on the right.”

  Marty went to the food locker. He asked: “Anything interesting happen?”

  “What could?”

  • • •

  Their course wound on through the foothills. As the sun slowly rose in the sky they were in harsh sunlight more of the time, which meant having to use the dimming blind but also meant that the batteries were kept at full charge. For the most part they saw only the walls of the valley or ravine through which the crawler was traveling, but occasionally there were glimpses of the high dazzling peaks of the mountains and once, from an eminence, a view of the Sea of Rains behind them, though not of the Bubble. They made one error by taking a wrong path into a cul-de-sac which stopped them dead after twenty minutes. Marty was at the wheel, Steve navigating. The crawler faced a wall of rock in which, Steve pointed out, there were gleaming flecks of something that was not ordinary stone.

  “Gold?” Marty asked.

  “False gold, more likely. But it might be worth making a note of it.”

  If they were able to report an important new site for mining, Marty thought, the authorities might go a little easier on them. The crawler backed up to the point which he recognized as the one where they had gone wrong, and he stopped fooling himself. Nothing was going to get them out of trouble when they went back to the Bubble. The best thing to do was not dwell on it.

  They had crossed the spine of the foothills and were descending by the time Steve went into the bunk again. The descent was not a steady one, of course—there were twists and backtrackings and occasional quite steep climbs—but on the whole they were heading downward and he was using the spikes from time to time to prevent a slide. Marty did not find the loneliness quite so overpowering this time, and the shift went reasonably quickly. At the end of six hours Steve reappeared and Marty took his place. He was very tired again and dropped off right away. The alarm woke him, and he came out to find the crawler heading along a dark and narrow canyon that dropped steeply in front of them. The walls were so close overhead that it was almost like being in a tunnel, and Steve had the headlights on to see his way.

  It was tricky terrain, as Marty discovered when he took over. Both lights and grip-spikes had to be used frequently, and however much care one took it was impossible to prevent the crawler’s treads occasionally losing adhesion and the crawler itself suddenly sliding, throwing the pair of them against one or another of the padded interior surfaces. Toward the end of this shift they came out into a broader valley where the slope looked moderate but, as he increased power, they were unexpectedly on scree. The crawler slithered for fifty yards before smacking up against a rock face. It gave them quite a shaking.

  Journey’s end, when it came, was unexpected. Marty steered the crawler around a rubble slope and the sunshine was blinding ahead of them, reflected not off a few peaks or high walls but from the great plain ahead. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the brilliance, and caught the gleam of something that was not rock but man-made and symmetrical—the small Bubble, no more than twenty yards across, of First Station.

  • • •

  The suits were too big, but since they were designed to fit men of differing physiques it was possible to wear them without much difficulty or discomfort. They went through the crawler’s airlock and stood for a few moments in the shade of the vehicle before proceeding. It was not the first time Marty had been in a spacesuit—children were trained to use them in vacuum as part of the Bubble’s safety program—but he felt different about th
is. Steve was silent beside him, for so long that Marty wondered if anything was wrong. Then he realized that he had not switched the suit radio on, and did so. Steve was saying: “. . . go right in? Or scout around it first?”

  The station’s airlock was in front of them, and open. There had been no point in closing it when it was abandoned: no wind or weather could affect it. He felt a reluctance, and said: “Let’s look around.”

  The perimeter was only a little over a hundred yards in extent, which they could cover in a few minutes in float jumps. On the second, though, they halted. They stared together at the cairn of boulders, very bright in the sunlight, and the metal post in front of it with the small plaque on top. It had four names on it, the names of the men who had died here at First Station. Three of them lay beneath the cairn, in graves blasted out of the rock. Their bodies would be as they had been at the moment of death. Decay and corruption were signs of life, and the Moon was lifeless. Mullins, Anquetil, Sharp. Marty looked at the fourth name. “Andrew Thurgood, not recovered.” He knew the story, from the books about First Station and the feature film that was still shown occasionally. Thurgood was the one who had taken out a crawler and not come back. They had searched for him, but found nothing. He was supposed to have said strange things before he went. It was guessed that his mind had been turned by the stress of living on the Moon, that he had traveled on until the batteries of his crawler were drained, his food and oxygen used up, and had died in some remote corner of one of the hundreds of thousands of clefts and gulches which covered the Moon’s surface.

  “What made them come here?” Steve asked. “What made anyone come here?”