by Allen Steele
It could have been much worse. Markus Talsbach hadn’t needed to climb the ladder; the explosive decompression had blown him straight up the shaft. Neither of them wished to study the mangled corpse sprawled across the auxiliary oxygen tanks; one glimpse of the black, frozen blood splashed across the walls was nearly enough to make them sick.
Can we make it to the tractor okay? Ryer stared through the open door to the closer of the two vehicles. It’s only ten meters away, I think.
Parnell pulled his gaze from Talsbach’s body. “I don’t see why not,” he replied, swallowing hard. Thankful for the distraction, he peered through the door at the nearby tractor. “Twenty, thirty feet. Piece of cake.”
That’s not what I meant. What about the gyrojet guns?
“They’re preset only to fire at moving objects outside the crater.” Gazing at the nearest guns atop the walls, he paused to reconsider. “Unless Dooley managed to reprogram the defense perimeter to ignore the security codes, or even track anything in motion within the crater. Then we could be in trouble.”
I don’t think so. Look over there. Ryer pointed to the silos on the far side of the crater. The missiles are still in place. If they managed to get the computers working again, wouldn’t they have launched them?
Parnell peered closely at the distant silos. Through their open hatches, he could make out the nose cones of the six Minutemen. Cris had a good point; if the computers were back on-line, then firing the missiles would have been the first thing Lewitt and Dooley did. After that, they might have reprogrammed the crater guns.
“Nice little program you got there,” he murmured. “Where’d you pick it up, Radio Shack?”
Ryer didn’t reply, nor did she need to; Parnell could guess the rest. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll work it out later.” He moved closer to the door. “I think we can take the risk. Just to be on the safe side, though, we’d better run for it. You with me?”
Like we’ve got a choice? Ryer lowered her helmet visor. Okay, on the count of three. One …
Parnell didn’t wait for the countdown. Pushing past her, he leaped through the doorway and bounded for Tractor One. His boots kicked up dusty regolith with each bunny-hop he took; on the third jump, though, his left foot found a large rock that sent him sprawling.
He instinctively rolled, taking most of the impact on his hips and shoulders, raising his arms to keep his faceplate from being fractured, until he lay chest-down on the ground. Sucking in his breath, he stared up at the crater wall, waiting for the guns to zero in on him and the first gyrojet bullet to rip through his suit.
Are you okay? Ryer asked.
She stood a few feet behind Parnell, looking down at him. Parnell clambered to his feet, dusting off his arms with his gloves. “Fine,” he replied. “I guess that settles that … about the guns, I mean.”
Ryer didn’t reply. Instead, she arched her body backward, apparently to look up at something directly overhead.
I think I know why they didn’t launch the missiles, she said softly.
Parnell forgot about the spill he had just taken. He copied her movements, staring past the rim of his helmet until he could see the black sky above Sabine Crater.
A bright constellation had appeared above them: four tightly grouped stars that were not fixed in the heavens. As he watched, the constellation grew closer, subtly increasing in luminosity, until he could make out a vague mass behind them that occulted the stars as it passed.
A spacecraft, descending from space for a landing inside the crater.
I think we’d better get out of here, Ryer said.
“No argument there.” Parnell turned and began to run the last few yards to the tractor.
Lewitt watched Parnell and Ryer on the TV monitor as they headed for the tractor. Even if he could have reactivated the crater guns and trained them on his former crewmates, he wouldn’t have done so. He wasn’t about to admit it to Cecil Orvitz, but he was just as happy to let them go. Gene particularly; he had a wife and kids at home.
Pretty soon, Lewitt mused, he would be seeing his own wife and daughter. The operation had been botched, but the damage was far from irreparable. Rautmann still owed him a million bucks once a nuke was delivered; two million dollars in a numbered Swiss bank account can buy a lot of freedom, especially in South America. Lisa wouldn’t understand at first, but she would get used to it….
He shook it off. There would be plenty of time later to make plans. Right now, he had a job to do.
“Ghost Rider, we’ve got you on final approach at angels one-five,” he said into his headset mike. “You’re looking good for touchdown, over.”
Understood, Blue Falcon. The Russian pilot’s voice was distracted; he was undoubtedly focused on the task of landing his craft within the confines of the crater.
As if to underline the point, a second voice—this one American, a Southerner judging by his accent—came over the link. Ahh … Blue Falcon, we see some movement within the crater. Are you sure the perimeter has been safed?
Lewitt pursed his lips. He glanced again at the monitor. Ryer and Parnell were climbing into Tractor One; in another few minutes they would be gone.
“A couple of guys escaped,” he replied. “Don’t worry about them. They can’t do anything.”
Orvitz brayed laughter; Lewitt gave him a look which shut the younger man up immediately. There was little Parnell or Ryer could do now except return to Conestoga. Even when they alerted the Wheel by radio and informed them as to what had happened at Teal Falcon, there was nothing anyone could do to prevent Ghost Rider from taking as many warheads as they wanted.
Lewitt’s most immediate problem was leaving the bunker. When Parnell had blown the airlock hatch, he had not only killed Markus Talsbach, he had also decompressed Level 1A. Fortunately, Aachener had slammed shut the 2A hatch and sealed it, so the blowout had been limited to the top level of Unit A. The rest of the bunker remained pressurized, and they had enough oxygen to last at least two more weeks.
However, the three of them couldn’t leave the base. There were no other exits besides the airlock, and that was separated from them by the suit-up room on Level 1A, which was exposed to hard vacuum.
This was a minor detail, however. Ghost Rider’s crew had been informed of the emergency; they knew that there were three men in the bunker who needed to be rescued. All someone had to do was enter the airlock, close the hatches, and repressurize the rest of the bunker.
We copy, Blue Falcon, the American replied. We’re coming in for landing.
There was another pause. When the voice returned, it was tinted with vague humor. By the way, Ghost Rider pilot wants to know where we should send your share of …
Abruptly, the transmission was cut off.
What the hell … ?
“Ghost Rider, this is Blue Falcon.” Lewitt stared at the radar screen as the blip entered the innermost circle of the bull’s-eye. “We don’t copy. Please repeat, over.”
Parnell stopped the tractor inside the pass at the top of the crater wall. It was impossible to tell whether the guns were still operational, but to make certain, he transmitted the six-digit code which would assure their safe passage through the security buffer. At least he hoped so; he was taking Ryer’s analysis of the situation entirely on faith.
That done, he turned around in his seat and peered through the driver’s dome at the crater below him.
The craft that had touched down on the far side of Sabine Crater was the stuff of legend. Back in the sixties, when Parnell had been training for Project Luna, rumors had circulated within the Space Force about a nuclear spacecraft the Russians were secretly developing to beat Eagle One to the Moon. It later turned out the stories were true; however, Zenith-One had exploded on the launch pad, while Zenith-Two had apparently been dismantled for scrap metal.
Now he knew differently. Zenith-Two rested on its tripod landing gear, a streamlined, spike-nosed needle eighty feet tall, like something from an old George Pal movie
. Pale lights glowed from its cockpit windows; halfway down the sleek fuselage, a red star was painted across the hull.
Good God, Ryer said from below, gazing through a window in the passenger compartment. Where did they find that antique?
Parnell shrugged. “Probably stashed away in a warehouse in Siberia. Purchased for a few billion dollars, shipped by freight train into North Korea, refurbished in the mountains … who knows? They’ve got it now.”
A few days ago, he and Joe Laughlin had been worrying about whether North Korea had developed a reliable satellite launcher. This was better than that: a surplus nuclear spacecraft, capable of dropping nukes wherever its owners pleased. The Zenith was almost a generation old, to be sure, but who needed the latest technology if the objectives remained basic?
As they watched, a cargo hatch yawned open on the vessel’s underbelly. A few moments later the slender boom of a crane began to telescope outward. Within the hatch, they could see the tiny form of a spacesuited figure.
“They’ll be going for one of the missiles now,” Parnell said. “All they have to do is climb down one of the silos, cut open the payload faring, and help themselves.” He shook his head. “They don’t even have to settle for one nuke … they can bring home as many as they can fit into the cargo bay.”
Oh, man … For someone whom he had once suspected of being a turncoat, Cris sounded properly mortified. Gene, we’ve got to stop them …
Parnell laughed out loud. “How? We don’t even have a gun anymore … I lost mine during the blowout. You think we stand a chance?”
We can head back to the base, she insisted. There are mortar rockets stored in the garage, the ones they used for geological research. We can rig one up, fire it at the crater …
“And probably miss,” he said. “Have you ever fired one? I never did.”
But we can figure out …
“Maybe we could. But even if we managed to hit something, what would happen? If we’re lucky, we’d destroy their ship … and probably touch off a nuclear explosion. Do you want to be that close to a nuke when it blows? I don’t.”
Goddammit, Gene! Ryer crawled forward to the short ladder leading to the pilot’s dome; there wasn’t enough room for both of them, so she futilely grabbed the right leg of his suit, shaking it to get his attention. We can’t just let them get away with it!
Suddenly, Parnell felt very tired. He had been fighting this battle for more than half his life. Before, it had been the Russians; now, it was with North Koreans flying secondhand Russian spaceships. In ten or twenty years, if he lived long enough and cared anymore, it would be with the Iranians or the Libyans or God knew who else managed to get their hands on cast-off technology to fulfill some cheap political ambition.
Such are the battles younger men wage, when their blood is hot with ideology and their minds are filled with unbetrayed dreams. He was an old man now, though, and he was fed up with this bullshit.
We’ve got to do something! Cris shouted.
In response, Parnell put his hand on the gearshift and shoved it forward, then released his foot from the brake pedal. Ryer was pitched back as the tractor lurched forward, crawling through the excavated pass and down the far side of the crater.
“Sure we can do something,” he said. “We can go home.”
Nine miles away, Conestoga was waiting for them, with enough fuel left in its tanks for the voyage back to the Wheel. He was alive. That must count for something.
“See ya ’round, Jay,” he whispered, not looking back at the bunker. “I hope it was worth it to you.”
The men in the bunker hadn’t heard anything from Ghost Rider since the Zenith touched down. Again and again, Lewitt hailed the North Korean vessel, only to be met with dead silence. He was beginning to harbor serious doubts when the voice of the Russian commander abruptly came over the comlink:
Blue Falcon, this is Ghost Rider. Come in, over.
“It’s about time,” Orvitz murmured as Lewitt let out his breath. He had long since given up on trying to restore the computers to operating status. The virus had totally infiltrated the mainframes, and even though it had been knocked out by a system reboot, it was then that he discovered that the missile c-cube system had been obliterated in the process. If there were backup files, they were located a quarter of a million miles away, in Crystal Palace’s computers.
Lewitt ignored the erstwhile Paul Dooley. “We copy, Ghost Rider. Nice landing. We were wondering about the LOS. Over.”
Behind him, he heard Uwe Aachener stand up from where he had been sitting at the bottom of the ladder. The German astronaut had found some stale candy bars in a food locker in the galley. They were the only food left behind, and undoubtedly several years old; that hadn’t prevented Aachener from attempting to eat them. He crumpled a paper wrapper and tossed it in the bloodstained corner of the firing room, where Rhodes’s and Bromleigh’s bodies had lain before he had removed them to the bunk compartment.
The Russian commander’s voice resumed. I apologize for the delay, Mr. Lewitt, but we have encountered some … ah, difficulties up here.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lewitt replied.
It appears that some members of your landing party have managed to successfully escape, Ghost Rider continued. We saw their vehicle leaving the crater just a few minutes ago. Do you know anything about this? Over.
Lewitt smiled. Just as well; despite all that had happened, he bore no real animosity toward Gene or Cris. “I understand, Ghost Rider. There was nothing we could do to prevent it. We lost a member of our own team in trying to stop them.”
A brief pause. I see. And you say that the bunker airlock has been voided, is that correct? And the top level?
“That’s right, Commander. We’re trapped on the lower levels.” Lewitt hesitated, feeling uneasy, not quite knowing why. “Of course, when you send one of your crew down here, he should be able to repressurize the airlock and Level 1A.”
Yes, that’s true. Another pause, a little longer this time. Even so, we yet have a small problem. Since you and your team members were expected to return aboard the Conestoga, we did not anticipate to supply … um, accommodations for three extra crew members.
Cecil Orvitz went dead white. “What the fuck is he … ?”
Lewitt furtively motioned for him to shut up. Ignoring him, Orvitz snatched up his own headset. “You son of a bitch, that was part of—!”
“Shut up!” Lewitt snapped. He hunched over the console, cradling the headset in his hands. “Look, Ghost Rider … Yuri … the deal with Wolff-Deiter was that …”
I am quite sorry, Ghost Rider interrupted, but the deal, as you say, has been changed. We shall require extra payload capacity to bring back some … ah, new baggage.
“You asshole!” Orvitz screamed. “You fucking bastard! Get us out of here!”
There was a long silence from the other end of the channel. After a few moments, the Zenith’s commanding officer spoke again.
I am truly sorry, he said, but further conversation is pointless. Perhaps you can convince the Americans to assist you. Ghost Rider over and out.
And then there was nothing but static.
Lewitt felt a warm presence next to him. Then a hand reached past his shoulder. Before he could react, Uwe Aachener snatched up the Colt from the desktop where Lewitt had placed it. When he looked up at him, Aachener’s face was impassive.
Orvitz’s mouth trembled. For the first time since they had met, the man who had pretended to be Paul Dooley was absolutely speechless.
Lewitt swallowed a hard, dry lump in his throat. He toggled the vox switch. “Ghost Rider, this is Blue Falcon. Please respond, over.”
Aachener studied the gun in his hand. Then he returned it to the desk and took a few steps back. He crossed his arms and stared at Lewitt.
“Ghost Rider, please come in.” Lewitt stared at the TV monitor. Two astronauts were stepping off the elevator; neither of them headed toward the camera. “Please come in, over.
”
He waited. No reply. “This is Blue Falcon, please come in.”
The static on the comlink was broken once more, for only an instant, by a sound that resembled distant laughter, as if echoing across space from a remote galaxy.
And then they heard nothing else except their own voices, until the oxygen supply finally began to run out.
By then, they had settled the question of who would use the gun first.
From The Washington Post; February 23, 1995
Lunar Mission Survivors Safely Return,
Recount Sudden Death on the Moon
By Timothy S. Smith
Special Correspondent
SPACE STATION ONE—Three days after lifting off from Tranquillity Base, the U.S.S. Conestoga arrived in Earth orbit, bringing with it the two sole survivors of the American-German lunar expedition that came to a disastrous end when a freak electrical fire swept through the Teal Falcon military complex.
The two NASA astronauts, Com. Eugene M. Parnell and Capt. Cristine S. Ryer, were taken off the returning moonship in what space station doctors described as “stable and satisfactory condition.” They were hurried to the Wheel’s infirmary to receive treatment for extensive second-degree burns, minor sprains and contusions, prolonged effects of smoke inhalation, and acute exhaustion.
In a brief interview several hours after his arrival, commander Parnell told reporters of the blaze that swept through the underground bunker just as his team was preparing to launch six Minutemen II missiles.
“It was horrible,” he said, speaking from his bed in the station infirmary. “Everything seemed to go up at once. We were lucky to get out of there alive.”
Captain Ryer said, “There was no way we could get anyone else out. Gene and I were fortunate that we were able to make it to the airlock in time … it was terrifying, just awful.”
“I’m sorry that nobody else got out alive,” said Space Station One Commander Joseph K. Laughlin of the accident which killed five astronauts, as well as ATS television correspondents Berkley Rhodes and Alex Bromleigh. “It was a terrible tragedy … I’m just glad that two people managed to make it out, safe and sound.”
