by John Burke
“Into your suit—fast!”
I bundled Clem into her suit, and then grabbed my own.
The sizzling motor must have melted the pressure body. Wisps of smoke were seeping up through the floor, and the gauge slumped to the bottom. I clawed over to the airlock door, and operated it as fast as it would go. No tidy routine this time—just get it open.
I hustled Clem out and jumped after her. I snapped the radio on and shouted: “Run... just run!”
I don’t know if she was switched on, but she saw me stumbling off anyway, and raced along beside me. Stones and shale rasped under our feet, and I flailed my arms to keep steady. We adjusted our stride so that we were going forward in long, swinging hops.
When we were a fair distance away, I stopped and looked back. A plume of smoke rose high and straight above the Bugdozer. Then, suddenly and soundlessly, there was a bright flash and a slow cascade of fragments. The Bugdozer was gone.
Clem whispered again: “Are we going to make it?”
“Yes,” I said, “we’re going to make it.”
We headed toward the domes, lengthening our strides until we were skimming along like giants in seven-league boots. Well, like pygmies in seven-league boots, then.
Farside Five stayed tantalizingly far away for what seemed an eternity. Just when I was wondering if our air supply would hold out, the domes seemed to float nearer, and then nearer, and at last we bounded up to the airlock.
Someone must have seen us coming. The outer door slid open and we went in. The lights tick-tacked their way through routine procedure, and then the inner door was open and we went through.
And flopped.
It was like that—holding out till the last second, and then giving way. Clem slid down beside me on the floor, and we lifted our helmets off, and laughed weakly.
And the first sound we heard, the first welcome from another human voice, was Liz Murphy saying:
“All right, Kemp, you’re under arrest—again.”
I stared up at her. She was sleek and trim and invulnerable. I didn’t like the way she was looking at Clem; didn’t like the contemptuous flicker of her eyes. All right, so Clem looked hot and battered and sticky. There was still more to her—more that mattered—than there was to Liz.
Funny. Although Liz was standing there with her legs straddled, hands on hips, with all the weight of the law behind her and all her own fury behind that face, I felt sorry for her and not for me.
I said: “Anybody got a nice cold drink?”
Dmitri came toward us. He got one arm under Clem’s shoulders and one under mine, and heaved us up like two sacks of geological specimens.
“She always gets her man, Bill.”
It depended how he meant it.
Liz said: “You’ve really been running up an account this time.” She watched without mercy as we gulped the drinks of water—real cold water at last—which Dmitri brought us after he had propped us against a bench. “You could have stayed in jail, faced that minor charge... but no: you had to bust out. You had to go running all over—”
“Her brother’s been murdered out there,” I said.
“You can do better than that.”
“Well, yes. Three other characters got killed as well. But I did that myself.”
The Supervisor edged in alongside Liz, staring apprehensively. I wondered what he’d got to be so apprehensive about; and tired as I was, I began to wake up.
Liz was staring, too. And I could see she was starting to believe. She knew me, and she recognized something in my tone that wasn’t a bluff. Slowly she said: “When you get into trouble, you really jump off the top board, don’t you?” And then, suddenly brisk, to the Supervisor: “Somebody better get out there and check all this.”
He shrugged helplessly, assuming that “none of my business” expression of his.
A lot had happened since we first met him.
I was awake now. The water made a cold little pattern way down inside me. I pushed myself away from the bench and detached one of the airbottles from the back of my suit.
“One thing we can check right now,” I said. “I humped this all the way back so we could test it.” I cradled it across one arm and advanced on the Supervisor. “Wally Taplin was killed with one of these.”
“I... don’t understand. If someone’s been—”
“Tell me what you think it smells of.”
“Now, look—”
“Just a smell, that’s all,” I said.
He cringed back, but I gave him a brief spray across the face.
He coughed and stumbled to one side. “But that’s terrible,” he said. “It... it could be... cyanide.”
Liz put one hand out instinctively. I held on to the airbottle. “Funny,” I said. “This is one of my own. Belongs to my own suit.” I sprayed another little cloud, this time across my own face. And I didn’t cough. I breathed deeply. “Perfectly all right. But...” I paced toward the Supervisor, who tried to back away but found there was a bench there and he couldn’t back any further. “You knew,” I said. “You sold it to Taplin. You sell all the airbottles around here. Right—why?”
He flapped his hands as though to wave real poison, real danger away. He looked imploringly at Liz. Her grim features gave him no comfort.
“Why?” I repeated.
“You can’t blame me. You can’t prove... can’t say... say...”
“I’m saying it. And I’m going to go on saying it. You supplied an airbottle that would kill a man the moment it was switched on. So I still want to know—why?”
Dmitri’s fist balled up into something menacing. Liz gave him a quick glance, but I had an idea she would manage to be a little late intervening if he did get busy on the little rat.
The Supervisor gulped. “Look, there wasn’t anything I could do. They... they made me. Out here on my own, how could I stand up to a gang of thugs like that? They wanted a bottle charged that way, so I had to do what they said.”
“Go on,” said Liz.
“They wanted the claim. Taplin’s claim. It was due to expire, but then it seemed he’d found something on it, or something—I don’t know, honest I don’t know—all I know is they had to have it.”
“Just to steal nickel?” said Clem wonderingly. “Just to—”
“No,” I said. “They wanted that particular patch to land an asteroid on.”
Just beyond the edge of my vision, somewhere over toward the airlock, a red light winked. It must mean something, but none of us turned to look at it: we were too busy right now.
Liz said: “You did buy those engines off Joe Mercer, then. And you’re going to land...” She shook her head in wonderment. “Tell me, Bill... Captain Kemp... are there any rules you haven’t busted, this past week?”
The airlock door sighed open. Four men in Moon suits walked in. They took off their helmets, and there they were, my four old friends: Hubbard, Whitsun, Jeff, and Harry.
The Supervisor sprang away from us and almost threw himself into Hubbard’s arms. “Mr. Hubbard, they’ve found out! You’ve got to fix it—you’ve got to get me off the Moon.”
Hubbard stayed very quiet. You might have thought he was making a sly, hissing joke when he said: “Ah, you’ve reached the confession stage, have you? And in front of the Bureau of Investigation, too.”
“I might have guessed where Bill was getting his money from,” said Liz dourly. “And how did you get over here, Mr. Hubbard?”
“The Bureau’s not the only one who can afford a fast Bug and driver.” Hubbard turned to me with an affable chuckle. “I’m glad we got here in time. I was afraid some of my—er—associates might not realize how essential you are to the project, and would have—er—disposed of you.”
“They tried,” I said.
“Really? I keep underestimating you, Mr. Kemp. But I suppose that means we’re three men short.”
“It does.”
“Mr. Whitsun...”
Whitsun made a note.
&n
bsp; Liz said: “All right, you’re all under arrest.”
Hubbard chuckled again. It wasn’t a happy sound. He turned to Harry and Jeff. “Oh, I don’t think so. Do you?” Their hands fell to the guns in their belts.
Clem was standing stiff and straight beside me. She said: “Can I get this straight: you got that louse to murder my brother just so you’d have a place to land an asteroid?”
“My dear, not just any old asteroid, but—”
“You fat scum.”
Her helmet lay on the bench a few inches away. She grabbed it and swung it at Hubbard. He reeled backward with a howl.
Jeff went for his gun. Liz was quicker. Before he could draw, she had shot him down.
Hubbard shouted something. Whatever it was, it was drowned by the sizzling burst of Harry’s gun. Liz jolted back as though she had been kicked, and there was a spreading smear of red and black across that spotless uniform—blood and scorchmarks in a foul, bubbling stain.
Her gun skidded across the floor. I dived for it, but Harry fired again and blew it far out of my reach.
Hubbard was still shouting. “Mr. Kemp! Please! Don’t do it.” As I lurched up from my knees he added in a quieter but much more menacing tone: “Don’t get yourself killed unnecessarily.”
Liz twisted over on the floor close to me. A groan forced itself out between her clenched teeth. I got my arm under her head and tried to lift her, but she writhed her head from side to side against me, and muttered: “No. No use.”
“Take it easy.” I felt that I was choking.
But she was the one who was choking. She just managed to say: “I don’t think I’ll be able to... to get you out... of this one, Bill.”
“Just take it easy. I’ll—”
“And I never... never did get you back... into the Corporation.”
I shook my head. Words were no use.
Faintly, almost inaudibly, she said: “Maybe I should have... tried to get you to... to Jupiter, or... or wherever, instead. Hope you make it, Bill.”
Then she was quiet.
I stayed where I was for a few seconds because I hadn’t the strength to get to my feet. There was no more Liz. All right, it hadn’t been what it ought to have been, and it wouldn’t ever have worked out, and... oh, and so on and so on. But it had been Liz, and it had meant something, and she’d meant something. While this little crowd... these creatures who’d done this to her, and done what they had to Wally Taplin...
Whitsun was saying calmly: “None of the shots pierced the dome, Mr. Hubbard. We’re quite safe.”
“Except Jeff.” Hubbard prodded the corpse with his foot. “You seem to be costing us quite a number of associates, Mr. Kemp. Now, I believe we need to take off for the asteroid in just under an hour’s time.”
“If you think”—I found the words at last—“I’m going to land that thing for you now—”
“Oh, I do. When was the last time we abandoned a project without a profit, Mr. Whitsun?”
“The Antarctic oil mining scheme, sir. Eight years ago.”
“Ah, yes. There wasn’t any oil there, was there?”
“No, sir.”
Hubbard grinned. “But there is sapphire in that asteroid, Mr. Kemp. So—”
“Nothing doing,” I said.
I watched Harry’s hand move lovingly onto the butt of his gun again.
Clem said: “Bill, just do whatever he says.”
I turned to her. She was white, weary, washed-out. But her eyes were clear, and she was begging me not to end it now.
I was tense. I was ready for the final blowup. Let them shoot, let’s bring the dome in around our heads, let’s make it all clean and decent again—-and the only way to do that was to smash the lot, exterminate the lot.
Which meant me and Clem, too.
She wasn’t afraid. Not for herself. But she didn’t want me to go berserk.
Hubbard said: “Ah! Perhaps we’ve discovered Mr. Kemp’s weak point. Harry...!”
Harry’s gun was in his hand. But it wasn’t pointing at me. It was aimed steadily and remorselessly at Clem.
“Shall we go?” said Hubbard.
We went.
I felt a momentary, absurd flicker of relief when I clambered into Zero Two. It was only a couple of days, but it seemed a lifetime since we’d disembarked and set out on that deadly trek to Wally’s claim. The ship had been more than a home to me; it was good to be back. But the sensation didn’t last long. Of all die passengers I’d ever carried, this little crowd was the least welcome.
“If you will take your places at the controls,” said Whitsun levelly.
“I’ll take my place,” I said, “when I’m good and ready. When I’m sure that all safety procedures—”
“I am not unobservant,” Whitsun interrupted. “I studied all the relevant procedures on our last trip. I shall be responsible for the final checks. Now, if you will settle yourself—”
“No,” I said.
Harry’s gun was there. It urged us into the seats. When Dmitri and I were in position, Whitsun deftly lashed us to the safety clamps with a length of fine cable. It was cunningly twisted so that the knots were out of our reach. He must have been an observant Boy Scout, too.
When everything was ready, Harry settled himself on the Control deck behind us, still nursing his gun. Hubbard, Whitsun, and Clem lay on the acceleration couches and on the fourth couch was the Supervisor. They weren’t leaving him behind. I wondered if he was fool enough to think they were really concerned with his welfare—that they’d really turn him loose once the trip was successfully completed.
Whitsun propped his computer on his chest and began to call out instructions.
We blasted off, and in the ensuing din there was a rest from him and Hubbard. Nothing but concentration on the familiar task of getting the crate off the ground at a reasonable angle at a reasonable speed. And then Whitsun again, reciting his little piece. “Main course Alpha two-seven-one, Beta oh-nine-five. Speed 8,500 miles an hour.”
Harry peered suspiciously as Dmitri set it up on the panel.
“Two hours to contact,” Whitsun concluded.
The relays fell into sequence, the ship looped over, and then I cut the engines.
In the silence Hubbard said: “Good. I’m beginning to feel a trifle hungry. Miss Taplin, I believe it is traditionally a woman’s privilege to prepare the food?”
Clem went about it in silence. Judging by the taste of what she came up with, she hadn’t been as observant in our Moonbug as friend Whitsun presumably would have been. I heard Hubbard belch and emit a little moan. It was impossible to deduce whether he had been given the iron-filing curry or the boot-leather goulash.
After we had eaten for a minute or two, he said musingly: “I wonder if I could bottle the taste of caviar?”
“You’re crazy anyway,” said Clem. “Crazy. Do you know that?”
“For trying to bottle caviar taste? No, really, I think there might be a market.”
“For trying to land six thousand tons of sapphire. You won’t make a cent.”
“Ah, now,” said Hubbard with a slimily avuncular manner which was worse than anything yet, “I don’t think you know quite as much about this—”
“I come from a mining family. Sapphires are valuable only because they’re rare. Down on Earth they only mine about a ton a year. Stick six thousand years’ production on the market at once, and it’ll be as valuable as colored glass. Not worth shipping off the Moon.”
I hadn’t thought of this before. It cheered me no end. I said: “Looks like you’ve been oil mining in Antarctica again, Mr. H.”
Dmitri grunted contemptuously. I thought he was on my side, but when I glanced at him I realized he wasn’t.
“He doesn’t want it for jewelry, you spacehead. You forgotten what sapphire is? It’s a ceramic, same as the stuff we’ve got lining those rocket tubes out there. Except sapphire’s die hardest thing around, bar diamond, and it can stand more heat than stainless steel.�
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“Two thousand degrees Centigrade,” Hubbard confirmed. “So my experts tell me. So if one happens to have six thousand tons of it lying around worth, as Miss Taplin says, nothing... then why not use it to line rocket tubes? I believe it would have been used that way years ago, but for the rather obvious reason.”
Light dawned. More light than I was really able to cope with. It wasn’t possible, was it, that Hubbard and I could talk the same language? I didn’t want even to speak to him, and yet...
The thought of it! Big engines, the engines they’d never been able to make until now. All the Corporation’s timid objections swept away. Off at last—off to Mercury and Jupiter.
“We’ll be able to go everywhere,” I said.
“I’ll be able to,” said Hubbard. “They’ll be my ships, Mr. Kemp, and anything they find will be my trade, at my prices. You can keep the Moon, and Mars and Venus. I’ll have the rest. The bigger half of the solar system. They’ll have to invent a new word,” he said jubilantly, “instead of ‘rich.’ ”
“They won’t let you do it.”
“I don’t think they can stop me. United Nations Space Charter... er...”
He waited for Whitsun to supply the correct reference, but Dmitri got there first. “Section five-C: freedom to explore and exploit.” He looked at me, and he, at any rate, thought that Hubbard was talking our language. “Bill, you always said if the Corporation didn’t do it, somebody else would. Meet ‘somebody’!”
Hubbard bobbed his head, accepting the compliment as his due. “Your engineer seems to grasp these things a little quicker than you do, Mr. Kemp.”
It was getting into Dmitri’s bloodstream. “Pilots!” he snorted. “They only know what the engineer tells them, and they only understand half that.”
“Don’t let’s exaggerate, Mr. Karminski. The big engines aren’t all the answer. The first flight to Mercury will still need a good pilot. Not just good—the best. The sort of man, say, who made the first landing on Mars. If he hasn’t forgotten too much since then.”
They were all waiting for me to say something. I held on to myself and did a mental countdown; but at zero I still didn’t know my blast-off direction.
