 CHAPTER III. PART I On June 1, ten days before Blastoff, David Lester came back to the shop, sheepish-nish pleasure and worry showing in his face. I cleared up matters at home, guys, he said, and I went to Minneapolis and obtained one of these. He held up the same kind of space fitness card that the others had. The tests are mostly passive, he explained further. Anybody can be whirled in a centrifuge or take a fall. That is somewhat simpler, in its own way, than clinging to a careening motor scooter, though I do admit that I was still almost rejected. So I'll join you again, if I'm permitted. I understand that my old gear has been completed as a spare. Paul told me. Of course I'm being crusty and asking to have it back now. Ah, Lester, I'm sure that's OK, Ramos grunted. Right, fellows? The others nodded. The subdued cheerfulness seemed to possess Lester, the mama's boy, as if he had eased and become less introverted. The bunch took him back readily enough, though with misgivings. Still the mere fact that a companion could return after defeat helped brace their uncertain morale. I'll order you a blast-off ticket, Lester, Frank Nielsen said, in one of the two G.O.'s Ground to Orbit rockets reserved for us. The space is still there. David Lester had won a battle. He meant the win through completely. Perhaps some of his determination was transmitted to the others. Two-in-two bains, for example, seemed more composed. There wasn't much work to do during those last days after the equipment had been inspected and approved. The initials of each man painted and read on his blast-off drum, and all the necessary documents put in order. Each story wrote a bust to Mississippi to say good-bye to his folks. The Cusacks flew to Pennsylvania for the same reason. Likewise, Gimp Hines went by train to Illinois. Ramos wrote his scooter all the way down to East Texas and back to see his parents and a flock of younger brothers and sisters. When he returned, he solemnly gave his well-worn vehicle to an earnest boy still in high school. No dough, Ramos said. I just wanted to have a good home. Those of the bunch who had families didn't run into any serious last-minute objections from them about their going into space. Blasting out was getting to be an accepted destiny. There was a moment of trouble with two-in-two bains about a kid of eight years named Chippy Potter who had begun to hang around the Hendricks just the way Frank Nelson had done long ago. But more especially, the trouble was about Chippy's Fox Terrier Blaster. The lad, of course, can't go along with us. Out there, on account of school and his mom, two-in-two said sentimentally, on one of those final evenings, so he figures his mutt should go in his place. Shucks, maybe he's right. A lady mutt first made it into orbit ahead of any people, remember? And we ought to have a mascot. We could make a sealed air-conditioned box and smuggle old blaster. Afterwards, he'd be all right inside a bub. You try and stunt like that and I'll shoot you, Frank Nelson promised. Things are going to be complicated enough. You always tell me no, Frank, two-in-two mourned. I know something else, said Joe Kuzak. He and his tough twin had returned to Jarveston by then, as had all the others who had visited their homes. There's a desperate individual around again, Tiflin. He appealed his test and lost. Kind of a good guy, some ways. The big Kuzaks, usually easy and steady and not too comical, both had a certain kind of expression now, like amused and secretive gorillas. Frank wasn't sure whether he got the meaning of this or not, but right then he felt sort of sympathetic to Tiflin, too. I didn't hear anything. I won't say or do anything, he laughed. Afterwards, under the pressure of events, he forgot the whole matter. It would take about thirty-six hours to get to the New Mexico spaceport. Calculating accordingly, the bunch hoisted their gear aboard two canvas-covered trucks parked in the driveway beside Hendricks, just before sundown, on their last day in Jarveston. People had begun to gather to see them off. Two-in-two's folks, a solid, chunky couple looking grave. David Lester's mother, of course, seeming younger than the bunch remembered her. Makeup brought back some of her good looks. She was more Spartan than they had thought, too. I've made up a basket of sandwiches for you and your comrades, Lester, she said. Otto Kramer was out with free hot-dogs, beer and Pepsi. His face said. Jay, John Reynolds, backer of a bunch, had promised to come down later. Chief of police, Bill Hubbard, was there, looking grim, as if he was half-glad and half-sorry to lose this parcel of law-abiding but worrisome young eccentric. There were various cynical and curious loafers around, too. There was Chippy Potter and his mud. A more wistful and worshipping pair would have been hard to imagine. Sophia Jamison, one of Charlie Reynolds's old flames, was there. Charlie had sold his car and given away his wardrobe, but he still managed to look good in a utilitarian white coverall. Well, we had a lot of laughs anyway, you big ape, Sophie was saying, to Charlie, when Roy Harder, the mailman with broken-down feet, shuffled up, puffing. One for you, Reynolds, he said. Also, one for you, Nelson. They just came ordinarily. I wouldn't deliver them until tomorrow morning. But you see how it is. A long white envelope was in Frank Nelson's hands. In its upper left-hand corner was engraved, United States Space Force, recruiting section Washington, D.C. Geez, Frankie, Charlie, you made it. Open them quick, two-and-two, said. Frank was about to do so, but everybody knew exactly what was inside such an envelope. The only thing that was ever so enclosed, unless you were already in the force, an official summons to report on such-and-such a date and such-and-such a place for examination. For a minute Frank Nelson suffered the awful anguish of indecision over a joke of circumstance. Like most of the others, he had tried to get into the force. He had given it up as hopeless. Now, when he was ready to move out on his own, the chance came. Exquisite irony. Frank felt the lift of maybe being one of, well, the chosen. To wear the red, black, and silver rocket emblem, to use the finest equipment to carry out dangerous missions, to exercise authority in space, and yet to be pampered, as those who make a mark in life are pampered. Que me alegro, holy cow, Ramos breathed. Charlie, Frankie, congratulations. Frank saw the odd faces around them. They were looking up to him and Charlie in a friendly way, but already he felt that he had kind of lost them by being a little luckier. Or was this all goofball sentiment in his own mind to make himself feel real modest? So maybe he got sentimental about this impoverished ragtag bunch that even considering J. John Reynolds' help, still were pulling themselves up into space almost literally by their own bootstraps. He had always belonged to the bunch and he still did. So perhaps he just got sore. Charlie and his eyes met for a second in understanding. Thanks, Postman Roy, Charlie said. Only you were right the first time. These letters shouldn't be delivered until your next trip around. Tomorrow morning. They both handed the envelopes back to Roy Harder. The voices of their bunch mates jangled in a conflicting chorus. Ah, you damn fools. Two and two bleed it. Good for them, Art Cusack said, perhaps mockingly. Hey there us. They'll stay with us. Shut up. Didn't we lose enough people already? Gimp said. Frank grinned with half of his mouth. We always needed a name, he remarked. How about the planet strappers? Hell, if the chair-born echelon of the USSF is so slow and picky, let him go sit on a sunspot. I need some white paint and a brush, Paul, Ramos declared, running into the shop. In a couple of minutes more, the name for the branch was crudely and boldly lettered on the sides of both trucks. Salute your ladies, shake hands with your neighbors, and then let's get moving, Charlie Reynolds laughed, genially. And so they did. Old Paul Hendricks, born too soon, blinked a little as he grinned and slapped shoulders. On your way, you lucky tramps. There were quick movements here and there. A kiss, a touch of hands, a small gesture, a strained glance. Frank Nelson blew a kiss jauntily to Nancy Cottis, the neighbor girl, who waved to him from the background. Salong, Frank, he wondered if he saw a fierce envy showing in her face. Miss Rosalie Parks, his high school Latin teacher, was there, too. Old J. John Reynolds appeared at the final moment to smile dryly and to flap a waxy hand. Salong, sir, thanks, they all shouted, as the diesels of the trucks word and then roared. J. John still had never been around the shop. It was only Frank who had seen him regularly every week. It might have been impertinent for them to say that they'd make him really rich, but some must have hoped that they'd get rich themselves. Frank Nelson was perched on his neatly packed blast-off drum in the back of one of the trucks as big tires began to turn. Near him, similarly, perched, were Mitch Storey, dark and thoughtful, Gimp Hines, with a triumph in his face, two in two bane spiting his lip, and Dave Lester with his large Adam's apple bobbing. So that was how the bunch left Jarveston on a June evening that smelled of fresh cut hay and car fumes, home. Perhaps they had chosen this hour to go because the gathering darkness might soften their haunting suspicions of complete folly before an adventure so different from the life they knew. Neat streets, houses, beds, Saturday nights, dances, struggling for a dream at Hendricks, that even if they survived the change the difference must seem a little like death. Seeking the lifting thread of magical romance again, Frank Nelson looked up at the ribbed canvas top of the truck, covered wagon, he said. Sure, Indians, boom, boom, two in two chuckled, brightening, wild west, yeah, wild, that's a word I kind of like. Up ahead in the other truck, Ramos and Charlie Reynolds had begun to sing a funny and considerably ribald song. They made lots of lusty primitive noise. When they were finished, Ramos, still in a spirit of humor, cornered up an old Mexican number about disappointed love. Adios, mujer, adios para siempre, adios. Ramos wailed out the last syllable with legubrious emphasis. Always its girls, Dave Lester managed to chuckle. I still don't see how they expect to find many out there. If our Eileen has or will make it, she won't be the first or last Frank offered, almost mystically. Hey, I was right about the word wild, two in two mused, yeah. We're all just plumb full of wanting to be wild. Not mean wild, mostly constructive wild instead. And damn, we'll do it. Cripes, we ought to come back to old Paul's place in June, ten years from now, and tell each other what we've accomplished. Damn, that's a fine idea, two in two, Dave Lester picked up. I'll suggest it to the other guys, first chance I get. Of course it was another piece of calla whistling in the dark, but it was a build up, too. Coming home at a fixed future time to compare glittering successes. Eldarados found and exploited, cities built, giant businesses established, hearts won real manhood achieved past staggering difficulties. But they all had to believe it to combat the icy sliver of dread concerning an event that was getting very near now. Mitch's story sat with his mouth organ cupped in his hands. He began to make soft musing chords, tried a fragment of Old Man River, shifted briefly to a spiritual and wound up with some eerie impromptu fragments, partly like the drums and jingling brass of Old Africa, partly like a joyful battle, partly like a lonesome lament, and then mysteriously like absolute silence. Story stopped the bashed, he grinned. Reaching for out there, Mitch, Frank Nelson asked. Music of your own to tell about space. Got any words for it? Nope, Mitch said. Maybe it shouldn't have any words. Anyhow, the tune doesn't come clear yet. I haven't been there. Maybe some more of Otto's beer will help, Frank suggested. Here, one can't each to begin. For once, Frank hadn't urged to get slightly pied. High's a good word, he amended. High in sky, Mars and stars. Space and race, nuts and guts, Lester put in, trying to belong and be like-minded, like he thought the others were, instead of a scared, pendantic kid. He slapped the blast-off drum under him familiarly, as if to draw confidence from its grim, cool lines. The whole bunch was quite a bit like that. For a good part of the night, shouting lustily back and forth between the two trucks, laughing, singing, wisecracking, drinking up Otto Kramer's Pepsi and beer. But at last Gimp Heinz, remembering wisdom, spoke up. We're supposed to be under mild sedation, a devil killer, a tranquilizer, for at least thirty hours. It's in the rules for prospective ground-to-orbit candidates. We're supposed to be sleeping good. Here goes my pill down, with the last of my beer. Faces sobered and became strained and careful again. The guys under trucks bet it down as best they could among their gaunt equipment. Soon, there were troubled snores from huddled figures that quivered with the motion of the vehicles. The mottled moon rode high. Big tires whispered on damp concrete. Lights blinked past. The trucks curved around corners, growled upgrades, highballed down. There were pauses at all night drive-ins, coffees, misguidedly drunk in a blurred, fur-tongued half-wakefulness that seemed utterly bleak. Oh, hell Frank Nelson thought. Wasn't it far better to be home in bed? Like jig Hollins. At Grey Dawn there was a breakfast stop, the two truck drivers and their relief man grinning cynically at the bunch. Then there was more country rolling and speeding past. Wakefulness was half-sleep and vice versa. And the hours through the day and another night dwindled toward last-off time at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. When the second dawn came, the bunch were all tauntly and whirly, alert again, peering ahead across the Dunn Desert. There wasn't much fall out from the carefully developed hydrogen fusion engines of the G.O. rockets. But maybe there was enough to distort the genes of the cacti a little, making their forms more grotesque. Along the highway there were arrows and signs. When the trucks had labored to the top of a ridge, the spaceport installation came into view all at once. Bobbed wire fences, low, olive drab gate buildings, guidance tower, the magnesium dome of a powerhouse reactor, repair and maintenance shops, personnel housing area, carefully shield against radiation by a huge, sterling bubble, sealed in air-conditioned with double-doored entrances and exits. Inside it were visible neat bungalows, lawns, gardens, supermarkets, swimming pools, swings, a kid's bike left casually here or there. The first sunshine glinted on the two rockets and their single attendant gantry tower, waiting on the launching pad. The rockets were as gaunt as sharks. They might also have been natural spires on the moon, or room towers left by the extinct beings of Mars. At first they were in personal and expected parts of the scene, until the numbers ceramic enameled on their striped flanks were noticed. G.O. 11 and G.O. 12. There us, up the old roller coaster, Charlie Reynolds shouted. Then everyone was checking his blast-off ticket, as if he didn't remember the number primally typed on it. Frank Nelson had G.O. 12. G.O. ground the orbit, but it might as well mean go, glory or gallows, he thought. The truck reached the gate. The bunch met the board and cynical reception committee, a half dozen U.S.S.F. men in radiation coveralls. Each of the bunch held his blast-off ticket, his space fitness and his equipment inspection cards meekly in sweaty fingers. It was an old story, the unknowing standing vulnerable before the knowing and perhaps harsh. Nelson guessed at some of the significance of the looks they all received. Another bunch of greenhorns to conquer and develop and populate the extra terrestrial regions. They all come the same way and look alike, poor saps. Frank Nelson longed to paste somebody even in the absence of absolute impoliteness. The blast-off drums were already being lifted off the trucks, weighed, screened electronically, and moved toward a loading elevator on a conveyor. The whole process was automatic. Nine men, ten drums, how come one of the U.S.S.F. people inquired? A spare. Its G.O. carriage charges paid, Reynolds answered. He got an amused and tired smirk. OK, sexy, it's all right with us, and I hope you fellas were smart enough not to eat any breakfast. Of course we'd like to have you say, tentatively, where you'll be headed, upon your own power, after we toss you upstairs, toward the moon, huh? Like most fledglings say. It helps a little to know. Some new folks start to scream and get lost up there. See how it is. Sure, we see thanks. Yes, the moon. This was still Charlie Reynolds talking. No problem then, sexy. We mean to be gentle. Now let's move along in line. Never mind consulting wristwatches. We've got over four hours left. Final blood pressure check first. Then the shot, the devil killer, the wit sharpener, and try to remember some of what you're supposed to have learned. Relax, don't talk too much, and try not to swallow any live butterflies. The physician, looking them over, shook his head and made a wiry face of infinite sadness when he came to Gimp and Lester, but he offered no comment except the helpless look. The USSF spokesman was still with them. All right, armor up. Let's see how good you are at it. They scrambled to it grimly and still a little clumsily. Gimp Hines had, of course, long ago tailored his archer to fit that shrunken right leg. Then they just sat around in the big locker room, trying to get used to being enclosed like this much of the time, checking to see that everything was functioning right, listening to the muffled voices that still reached them from beyond their protecting encasement. They could still have conversed by direct sound or by helmet radio, but the devil killer seemed to subdue the impulse, and for a while caused a dreaminess that shortened the long wait. OK, time to move. Heavy with their archies, they filed out into the desert sun glare that their darkened helmets made feeble. They arose in the long climb of the gantry elevator and split into two groups, for the two rockets according to their G.O. numbers. It didn't seem to matter now who went with whom. Each man had his own private sweating party. The padded passenger compartments were above the blast-off drum freight sections. Helmets secure air-restore systems on, phones working, answer roll call if you hear me. Baines George. Here, two and two, responded loud and plain in Frank Nelson's phone from the other rocket. Hines Walter. One by one the names were called Cusack Arthur Cusack Joseph. OK, the mystic nine, huh? Lashdown. They lay on their backs on the padded floors and fastened the straps. Gimp Hines, next to Frank, seemed to have discarded his crutches somewhere. The inspector swaggered around among them, jerking straps, and tapping shoulders and buttocks straight on the floor padding with a boot-toe. All right, not good, not too bad. Ease off, shut your eyes maybe. The next twenty minutes are ours. The rest are yours except for orders. I hope you remember your jump procedures. Also, there are a lot of wooden nickels upstairs in orbit on the moon any place. We'll call some of your shots from the ground. Good luck and glory help you. The growl in their phones died away with the muffled footsteps. Doors closed on their gaskets and were dogged automatically. Then it was like waiting five minutes more inside a cannon barrel. There was a buzzing whisper of nuclear exciters. The roar of power cut in. A soft lurch told that the rockets were off the ground, fire-borne. The pressure of acceleration mounted. You closed your eyes to make the blackness seem natural instead of a blackout in your optic nerves. And the threadiness of your mind seemed like sleep. But you felt smothered just the same. Somebody grunted. Somebody gave a thick cry. Frank Nelson had the strange thought that, by his body's mounting velocity, enough kinetic energy was being pumped into it to burn it to vapor in an instant if it ever hit the air. But it was that energy of freedom from gravity, from the earth, from home for adventure. Freedom to wander the solar system at last. He tried still to believe in this magnificence of it. As the thrusts of the rocket power ended, and the weightlessness of orbital flight came dizzily. He didn't consciously hear the order to leave the orbiting, G.O. 12, which was moving only about five hundred feet from its companion, G.O. 11. But, like most of the others, he worked his way with dog to purpose through what seemed the fuzzy nightmare. The doors of the passenger compartment had opened. Likewise, the blast-off drums had been ejected automatically and were orbiting free. Maybe it was Gimp who moved ahead of him, looking out. Frank saw what was certainly Ramos already straddling a drum marked with a huge red MR, riding it like a jaunty troll on a seahorse. He saw the Cusacks dive for their initial drums. Big men not yet as apt in this new game as in football, but grimly determined to learn fast. The motion was all as silent as a shadow. Then Frank jumped for his own drum and found himself turning slowly, end over end, seeing the first pearl-missed curve that was the earth. Then the brown-black chalk smeared sky with the bright needle-points and the corona-winged sun in it. Instinct made him grab futile outward for the sense of weightlessness was the same as endless fall. He was falling around the earth, his forward motion exactly balancing his downward motion in a locked ellipse, a closed trajectory. His mind cleared very fast. That must have been another phase of the devil-killer shot coming in the action. Controlling panic, he relocated his drum, marked by a splashed red FN, set his tiny shoulder ionic in operation and reached back to move its flexible guide, first to stop his spin, then to produce forward motion. He got to the drum and just clung to it for a moment. But in the next instant he was looking into the embarrassed and anguished face of a person who, like a drowning man, had come to hang on to it for dear life too. Frank, I even dirtied myself. So what? Over there is your gear two and two, go get it. Frank shouted into his phone, the receiver of which was now full of sounds, a moaning grunt, a vast hip cupping, shouts and exhortations. Easy less, Reynolds was saying. Can you reach a pill from the rack inside your chest plate and swallow it? Just float quietly. Nothing will happen. We've got work to do for a few minutes. We'll look after you later. Cripes, Mitch, he can't take it. Jab the knockout needle right through the sleeve of his archer, like we read in the manuals. The inter-wall gum will seal the puncture. Just then the order came madly calm and hard above the other sounds in Frank's phone. All novices disembarked from G.O.'s 11 to 12 must clear 400 miles take-off orbital zone for other traffic within two hours. At once Frank was furiously busy working the dark and staleen of his bub from the drum, letting it spread like a long wisp silvery cobwebs against the stars, letting it inflate from the air flasks to a firm and beautiful circle attaching the rigging, the fine radio spoke wires for which the blast-off drum itself now formed the hub. To the latter he now attached his full-size sun-powered Ionic motor. Then he crept through the double-ceiling flaps of the airlock to install the air-restorer and the moisture reclaimer in the circular, tunnel-like interior that would now be his habitation. He wasn't racing anything except time, but he had worked as fast as he could. Still some pines had finished rigging his bub minutes ahead of Frank or anybody else. On second thought, maybe this was natural enough. Here, where there was no weight, his useless leg made no difference, as the space fitness examiners must have known. Besides, Gimp had talented fingers and a keen mechanical sense, and had always tried harder than anybody. Ramos was almost as quick. Frank wasn't much farther behind. The Cusacks were likewise doing all right. Two-and-two was trailing some, but not very badly. Spinem, Gip, shouted, don't forget the spinem for centrifuge, gravity, and stability. And so they did, each gripping the rigging at their bub rims, and using the minute but accumulative thrust of the shoulder Ionics of their archers to provide the push. The inflated rings turned like wheels with perfect bearings. In the all but frictionless void they could go on turning for decades without additional impetus. We made it, we're out here, we're all right, Ramos was shouting with fierce exaltation. Shut up, Ramos, Frank Nelson yelled back. Don't ever say that too soon. Look around you. Story and Reynolds were still struggling with their brubs. They had been delayed by trying to quiet Dave Lester, loaded in a drugged stupor, lashed to his blast-off drum. Slowly pushed by their shoulder Ionics, Gimp Ramos and Frank Nelson drifted over to see what they could do for Lester. He was vaguely conscious. His eyes were glassy. His mouth drooled watery vomit. What do you want us to do, Lester, Frank asked gently? We could put you back in one of the rockets. You'd be brought back to the spaceport when they are guided back by remote control. No, Lester wailed in a hoarse voice. Fellas, I don't know. A little falling is all right. But it goes on all the time. I can't stand it. But if I'm sent back, I can't ever live with myself. Frank felt the intense anguish of trying to decide someone else's quandary that might be a lie for death matter which would surely involve them all. Damn, weak-need kid. How had he ever gotten so far? We should have set up his bub first, put him inside, and spun it to kill the sense of fall, Gimp said. We'll do it now. He should be all right. He did pass his space fitness tests, and the experts ought to know. With the three of them at it, and with the Kuzecs joining them in a moment, the job was quickly finished. Meanwhile the sharp, commanding voice of ground control sounded in their phones again. Geo's eleven and twelve returning the support. Is all in order among delivered passengers? Sound out, if true. Bangs, George. David Lester's name was called just before Frank Nelson's, and he managed to say in order, almost firmly, creating a damnable illusion, Frank thought. But for a moment mixed with his anger, Frank felt a strange, almost paternal gentleness, too. At the end of the roll-call, the doors of the Geo rockets closed. Subby wings, useful for the ticklish operation of skip-glide deceleration and re-entry into the atmosphere, slid out of their sheaths. Little lateral jets turned the vehicles around. Their main engines flamed lightly, losing speed they dipped in their paths, beginning to fall. Watching the rockets leave, created a tingling sense of being left all alone at an empty, breathless height from which you could never get down, a height full of dazzling, unnatural sunshine that, in moments, would become the dreadful darkness of Earth's shadow. CHAPTER III. PART II Hey, our spared rum! It'll drift off! Ramos shouted. The Kuzecs dived to retrieve the cylinder. Others followed, but there was a peculiar circumstance. The friction cover at one of his ends hung open. There was a trailing wisp of stelline, part of the bub packed inside, and a thin, angry face with rather hysterical eyes within the helmet of an archer five. SHH! It ain't safe for me to come out yet! Glen Tiflin hissed threateningly. Damn you all, if you dare queer me! Cripes another Jonah, Charlie Reynolds growled. Frank Nelson looked at the Kuzecs floating near. Well, what could we do? Joe Kuzec, the gentler twin, whispered. He came back to Jarveston to our rooming house one night. We promised to help him a little. What are you going to do with a character nuts enough about space to armor up and stuff himself inside a blast-off drum? Of course he didn't come that way from home. There's that electronic check of drum contents at the gate of the port. But he was there on a visitor's pass, waiting, having hitch-typed all the way to here. After the electronic check he figured on stowing away while the drums were waiting to be loaded. The only thing we did to help was to take some of the stuff out of the spare drum and stow it in our two drums to leave him some room. We thought sure he'd be caught quick. But you can see he got away with it. Those US SF boys at the port don't really give a damn who gets out here. OK, I'll buy it Reynolds side heavily. Good luck with the stunt, Tif. Tiflin only gave him a poisonous glare, has fine fragile gleaming rings, the drifting men, and the spare drum orbit it on into the Earth's shadow. Not nearly as dark as it might have been, because the moon was brilliant. We'd better rig the parabolic mirrors on the Ionics to catch the first sunshine in about forty minutes, so we can start moving out of orbit, Ramos said. We'll have to think of food sometime too. Food, yet, ugg, Art Kuzak grunted. Frank felt the fingers of spasm taking hold of his stomach. Most everybody was getting fall sick now, their insides not finding any up or down direction. But the guys wavered back to their bubs. The shoulder Ionics of their archers, though normally sun energized, could draw power from the small nuclear batteries of the armor during the rare moments when there could be darkness anywhere in solar space. The planet strappers stood in the rigging of their fragile vehicles, setting the full sized Ionics to produce increased acceleration, which would gradually push the craft beyond orbit. Joe Kuzak ran a steel wire from a pivot vault at the hub of his ring to tow Tiflin and his drum. Then everybody crawled into their respective bubs, most of them needing the centrifugal gravity to help straighten out their fall sickness. My neck is swelling too, Frank Nelson heard Charlie Reynolds say. Lymphatic glands sometimes bog down in the absence of weight. Don't worry if it happens to some of you. We know that it straightens out. For a few minutes it seemed that they had a small respite in their struggle for adjustment to a fantastic environment. Well, I got cleaned up some. That's better, two and two said. But look at the fuzzy lights down on Earth. Hell, is it right for a fella to be looking down on the lights of Paris, Moscow, Cairo, Ragoone, when he hasn't ever been any further than Minneapolis? Two and two sounded fabulously befuddled. David Lester started screaming again. They had left him alone and apparently unconscious inside his ring, because all Ionics, including his, had had to be set. Then in the pressure of events they had almost forgotten him. I'll go look, Frank Nelson said. Mitch's story was there ahead of him. Mitch's helmet was off. His dark face was all planes and hollows in the moonlight coming through the thin transparent walls of the vehicle. Should we call the USSF patrol Frank, he asked anxiously. Have them take him off, because he sure can't stand another devil-killer. We'd better, Frank answered quickly. But now Tiflin, having deserted his blast-off drum, was coming through the airlock flaps, too. He stepped forward gingerly along the spinning ring-shaped tunnel. Poor bookworm he growled in a tone curiously soft for Glenn Tiflin. Think I don't understand how it is, and how do you know if he wants to get sent back? Mitch had removed Lester's helmet, too. Tiflin knelt. His arm moved with savage quickness. There was a crack of knuckles in a rubberized steel fabric space-glove against Lester's jaw. His hysterical eyes glazed and closed. His face relaxed. For a second of intolerable fury Frank wanted to tear Tiflin apart. But Mitch half-grinned. That might be an answer, he said. They plopped where they were and tried the rest until the orbiting cluster of rings emerged from Earth's shadow into blazing sunshine again. Then Mitch and Frank returned to their own bubs to check on the acceleration. It was soon plain that Joe Cusack's bub towing Tiflin's drum would lag. Hell, Art Cusack snapped. Get that character out here to help us inflate and rig his own equipment. We did enough for him. So if the force notices that there are ten bubs instead of nine, the extra is still just our spare. Hey, Tiflin. Nuts, I'm looking after panty-waste. Tiflin growled back. All right, Art returned. So we just cast your junk adrift. Come on, boy. There was no kidding in the dry tone. Tiflin snarled, but obeyed. Ion's jetting from the earthward hub ends of the rotating rings yielded their steady few pounds of thrust. The gradual outward spiral began. Cribs, I'm not sure, I can even astrogate to the moon. Two and two was heard to complain. I'll check your Ionic setting for you. Two and two, Gimp answered him. After that the acceleration should continue properly without much attention. So how about you and me taking first watch while the others ease off a little? Frank Nielsen crept carefully back into his own rotating ring, still half-afraid that an armored knee or elbow might go right through the thin yielding stilling. Prone, and with his helmet still sealed, he slipped into the fog which the tranquilizer now induced in his brain, while the universe of stars, moon, sun, and earth tumbled regularly around him. He dreamed of yelling in endless fall and of climbing over metal-veined chunks of a broken world where once there had been air, sea, desert, and forests, and minds none unlike those of men, but in bodies that were far different, gurgling thickly, he awoke and snapped on his helmet-phone to kill the utter silence. Someone muttered a prayer in a foreign tongue. Nusra dama di guadalupe, ti piro, por favor. Tango, miro, I'm scared. Piro, penso, mas, en ella. I think more of her. Mi chula. Mi linda. My beautiful Eileen. Keep her. The prayer broke off as if a switch was turned. It had been brash, Ramos. Now there were only some fragments of harmonic music. Frank slipped into the blur again, awakening at last with two and two shaking his shoulder. Hey, Frankie, we're five hours out by the chronometers. Look how small the earth is, God. We're all going to have brunch in Ramos's vehicle. Know what that goofball Mechs was doing before? Strip down to his shorts, and with a spin stop for 0G, he was bouncing back and forth from wall to wall inside his bub. The sun makes it nice and warm in there. I think I might try it myself sometimes. Shucks, I feel pretty good now. Frankie, ain't you hungry? Frank felt limp as a rag, but he felt much better than before, and he could stand some nourishment. Lead on, two and two, he said. Ramos's bub was spinning once more, but he was wearing just dungarees. The bunch, the planet strappers, with only their helmets off, were crouched, evenly spaced around the circular interior of the ring. Dave Lester was there, too, staring but fairly calm now. In this curious place there was a delicious and improbable of coffee, cooked by mere reflected sunlight on a tiny solar stove. So that's the way it goes, Charlie Reynolds commented profoundly. We reach out for strangeness, then we try to make it as familiar as home. Stu warmed in the cans, too, Ramos declared, enough for a light one time around. I brought the Stu along, hope you birds remember. Then we're back on dehydrates. Hell, except for the weight problem and consequent cost of stuff from earth, we'd have it made out here. The big vacuum ain't so tough, no storms in it, even to tear our bubs apart. I guess we won't ever have a bigger adventure than finding out for ourselves that we can get along with space. If we had a beef roast, we'd put it in a sealed container of clear plastic gimp left, set it turning outside the bub on a swivelled tether wire. It would rotate for hours, like on a spit, almost no friction, rig some mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat. Space force men do things like that. Shut up, I'm getting hungry, Art Kuzak roared. Ramos poured the coffee in the thin magnesium cups that each of the bunch had brought. Their squeeze bottles for zero G drinking were not necessary here. Their skimpy portions of Stu were spooned on magnesium plates. Knife and fork combinations were brought out. An apple puree, which had been powdered, followed the Stu. Brunch was soon over. That's all for now, folks, Ramos said, ruefully. Tiflin snaked the cigarette out from inside the collar of his archer. Hey, Reynolds yelled mildly. Oxygen, remember? Shouldn't you ask our host first? Ramos had eased up on ribbing Tiflin months ago. It's OK, he said. The air restores are new. But Tiflin's explosive nerves, under strain for a long time, didn't take it. He threw down the unlighted fag. He snicked his switchblade from a thigh pocket. For an instant it seemed that he would attack Reynolds. Then the knife flew and penetrated a thin taunt wall to its handle. There was a frightening hiss until the sealing gum between the double layers cut off the leak. The Cusacks had Tiflin helpless and snarling at once. Get a patch somebody, fix up the hole. Joe, the mild one, growled. Tiflin, me and my brother helped you. Now we're going to sit on you, just to make sure your funny business doesn't kill us all. Try anything just once, and we'll feed you all that vacuum without an archer. If you're a good boy, maybe you'll live to get dumped on the moon as we pass by. But let's give this sick rat to the space force right now, Art Cusack hissed. Here comes their patrol bub. The glinting transparent ring, with the barred white star, was passing at a distance. All is well with you novices, the inquiring voice was a gruff drawl, mingled with crunching sounds of eating, perhaps a candy bar. No, Tiflin whispered, pleading, I'll watch myself. The United Nations patrol was out to, farther off, another darker bub, with other markings passing by quite close. It's foreign lines, more than a bit sinister to the bunch's first startled view. It was a tovy vehicle, representing the other side of the still, for the most part, passively opposed to forces on earth and far beyond. But through the darkened transparency of Stilleen, the murdered figures, again somewhat sinister, only raised their hands in greeting. In a minute Frank Nelson emerged from Ramos's ring, floating free. He stabilized himself, fussed with the radio antenna of his helmet phone for a moment, making his transmission and reception directional. On the misty, shrinking earth, North America was visible. Frank Nelson to Paul Hendricks he said. Frank Nelson to Paul Hendricks. Paul was waiting alright. Hello Franky, some of the guys talked already, said you were asleep. Hi Paul, yeah. Tara still looks big and beautiful. We're okay, amazing isn't it? How, just a few watts of power beamed out in a thin thread will reach this far and lots farther. Hey, will you open and shut your front door? Let's hear that old customer's bell jingle. Best to you to Jay John to Nance Cottes to Miss Parks and everybody. The squeak of hinges and the jingling came through clear and nostalgically. Come on Frank, two and two urged, other guys would like to talk to Paul. Hey Paul, maybe you could get my folks down to the store to say hello to me on your transmitter and I guess Les would appreciate it if you got his mother. When the talk got private Frank I wanted to show you Mitch said I brought seeds and these little plastic tubes with holes in them that you can string around inside a bub. The weight is next to nothing. Put the seeds in the tubes and water with plant food in solution. The plants come up through the holes. Hydroponics. Gotta almost do it. If I'm going way out to Mars without much supplies maybe before I get there I'll have even ripe tomatoes cost with sun all the time the stuff grows like fury they say. I'll have stream beans and onions and flowers anyhow. Helps keep the air oxygen fresh too. Wish I had a few bumble bees thus now I have to pollinate by hand. Nope Mitch couldn't get away from vegetation even in space. The planet strappers soon established a routine for their journey out as far as the moon. There were watches to be sure that none of the bubs veered while somebody was asleep or inattentive. Always at hand were loaded rifles because you never knew what kind of space soured men who might once have been as tame as neighbors going for a drive on Sundays with their families might be around even here. Neither Cusack slept if the other wasn't awake. They were watching Tiflin whose bub rode a little ahead of the others. He was ostracized more or less. Everybody took the romances kind of exercise bouncing around inside a bub even Lester who was calmer now but obviously strained by the vast novelty and uncertainty ahead. I gave you guys a hard time. I'm sorry he apologized but I hope there won't be any more of that. The bunch will be breaking up soon. I guess going here and there. And if I get a job at Serenititis Base, I think I'll be OK. Frank Nelson hoped that he could escape any further part of Lester but he wasn't sure that he had the guts to desert him. It wasn't long before the Ionics were shut off. Enough velocity had been attained. Soon the thrust would be needed in reverse for breaking action near the end of a 60 hour journey into a circum-lunar orbit. Sleep was a fitful dream-haunted thing. Food was now mostly a kind of gruel, rich in starches, proteins, fats and vitamins, each meal differently flavored up to the number of ten flavors in a manufacturer's attempt to mask the sameness. Add water to a powder, heat and eat the spaceman's usual diet while afield. One of the functions of the moisture reclaimers was a rough joke or a squeamishness. These and vows functioned and precious water molecules couldn't be wasted here in the dehydrated emptiness. But what difference did it really make after the sanitary distillation of a reclaimer? Except, adjust. Decision about employment or activity in the immediate future was one thing that couldn't be dismissed and announcements beamed from the moon emphasized it. Serenititis base day, 16th hour. There was a chime. Lunar projects placement is here to serve you, plastics chemist, hydroponics specialist, machinists, mechanics, metallurgists, miners, helpers are all urgently needed. The tax-free pay will startle you, free subsistence in quarters, here at Serene, at Tyco Station or at a dozen other expanding sites. Charlie Reynolds sat with Frank Nelson while he listened. The lady has a swell voice, said Charlie. Otherwise it sounds good too. But I'm one that's going farther to Venus just being explored all fresh and no man-made booby traps at least. Maybe they'll even figure out a way to make it rotate faster, give it a reasonably short day and a breathable atmosphere, make a warmer second earth out of it. Sometimes when you jump farther you jump over a lot of trouble. Better than going slow with faint hearts, their muddling misfortunes begin to stick to you. I'd rather be Mitch headed for heebie-jeebie Mars or the Cusacks aiming for that crazy asteroid belt. That was Charlie talking to him, Frank Nelson, like an older brother. It made a sharp doubt in him again, but then he grinned. Maybe I'm a slow starter, he said. The moon is near and humble, but some say it's good training, even harsher than space, and I don't want to bypass and miss anything. Oh hell, Charlie. I'll get farther soon, too, but I really don't even know what I'll do yet. Got to wait and see how the cards fall. Several hours before the rest of the bunch curved into a slow orbit a thousand miles above the moon, Glenn Tiflin set the ionic of his bub for full acceleration and arched the way outward, perhaps toward the belt. So long all you dumb slobs his voice hissed in their helmet phones. Now I really get lost. If you ever cross my path again, watch your heads. Art Cusack's flair of anger died. Good riddance he breathed. How long will he last alone? Without a space fitness card the poor idiot imagines himself a big, dangerous renegade already. Joe Cusack's answering tone almost had a shrug in it. Don't jinx our luck, twin brother, he said. For that matter how long will we last? Mechs, did you toss Tiflin back his shiv? A couple of hours ago Ramos answered mildly. Everybody was looking down at the moon whose crater pocked ugliness and beauty was sparsely dotted with the blue spots of Steline domes. Many of them housing embryo enterprises that were trying to beat the blast-off cost of necessities brought from Earth and to supply spacemen and colonists with their needs cheaply. The nine fragile rings were soon in orbit. One worker recruiting rocket and several trader rockets much less powerful than those needed to achieve orbit around Earth and the rest of the terrestrial were floating in their midst. On the moon it had of course been known that a fresh bunch was on the way. Even telescopes could have spotted them farther off than the distance of their 240,000 mile leap. Frank Nelson's tongue tasted of brassy doubt. He didn't know where he'd be or what luck, good or bad he might run into within the next hour. He was recovering with occupants of two heavily loaded trader rockets. Sure will buy if the price is right, Art was saying. Flasks of water and oxygen, medicine, rolls of Steline, spare parts for Archies, Ionics, air restores, food, clothes, anything we can sell ourselves. The Cusacks must have at least a few thousand dollars which they probably managed to borrow when they had gone home out here free of the grip of any large sphere there was hardly a limit to the load which their Ionics could eventually accelerate sufficiently to travel tremendous distances. Streamlining in the vacuum of course wasn't necessary either. Now a small, sharp featured man in an Archie drifted close to Ramos and Frank as they floated near their bubs. Hello Ramos, hello Nelson I know your names. We investigate beforehand, down on Terra Ferma. We even have people to snap photographs. Often you don't even notice. We like guys with talent who get out here by their own efforts. Shows they've got guts, seriousness. But now you've arrived. We are lunar projects placement. We need mechanics, process technicians, administrative personnel, anything you can name almost. Any bright with drive enough to learn fast suits us fine. 500 bucks an Earth week to start meals and lodging thrown in. Quit any time you want. Plenty of different working sites mines, refineries, factories construction. Serenititis base Ramos asked almost too quickly Frank thought and he sounded curiously serious. Was this the Ramos who should be going a lot further than the moon anyway? Yes fella said the job scout. Then I'll sign. Excellent, you two guy. The scout was looking at Frank. And your other friends? I'm thinking about it Frank answered cagelly. Some of them aren't stopping on the moon as you can see. Mitch Story was lashing a few flasks of oxygen and water to the rim of his bub being careful to space them evenly for static balance. He didn't have the money to buy much more even here. The Cusacks were preparing two huge bundles of supplies which they intended to tow. Reynolds was also loading up a few things with two and two helping him. I'm all set Frank two and two shouted. I'm going along with Charlie maybe to crash the Venus exploration party. Good Frank shouted back glad that this large unsure person had found himself a leader. He looked at Gimp Hines riding the spinning rim of his ring with his good and bad leg dangling an expectant quizzical half worried look on his freckled face. But Dave Lester was more pathetic. He had stopped the rotation of his bub. He looked down first at the pitted jagged face of the moon with an expression in which rapture and terror may have been mingled glanced with a hope of desperation toward the job scout and distractedly continued dismantling the rigging of his vehicle as if to repack it in the blast off drum for a landing. Hey hold on less two and two shouted. You got to know where you're going first. Make up your mind Nelson said the job scout getting impatient. We handle just about everything lunar except in the tovy areas without us you're just a lost fresh punk. But another man had approached from another lunar geo rocket which had just appeared he had a thin intellectual face dark eyes trap mouth white hair soft speech that was almost shy I'm Xavier Rodin he said I search out my own employees I do minerals survey for gypsum bauxite anything and site survey for factories and other future developments I also have connections with the Selenographic Institute of the University of Chicago it is all interesting work but in a rather remote region I'm afraid the far side of the moon and I can pay only 300 a week of course you can resign whenever you wish perhaps you'd be interested Mr. Nelson is it Frank had an impulse to jump at the chance though there was a warning coming to him from somewhere but how could you ever know you would always have to go down to the devil's wilderness to find out I'll try it Mr. Rodin he said Selenography that's one of my favorite subjects sir David Lester burst out making a gingerly leap across the horrible void of spherical sky stars in all directions except where the moon's bulk hung could I too his trembling mouth looked desperate very well boy Rodin said 100 dollars for a week's work period Frank was glad that Lester had a place to go and furious that he would probably have the nurse made him after all Gimp Hines kept writing the rim of his ring like a merry-go-round his face trying to show casual humor and indifference over rulefulness and scare nobody wants me he said cheerfully it's just prejudice and poor imagination well I don't think I'll even try to prove how good I am of course I could shoot for the asteroids but I'd like to look around Serena Titus base some anyway will 50 bucks get me in my rig down talk to our pilot lame fella said the job scout but you must be suicidal nuts to be around here at all the others left to help Nelson, Ramos, Gimp and Lester strip and pack their gear Ramos's and Gimp's drums were loaded into the job scout's rocket. Nelson's and Lester's went into Rodan's gloved hands clasped gloved hands all around the bunch the planet strappers were breaking up so long you characters see you around said Art Kuzak it won't be ten years before you all wind up in the belt bring back the mystery of Marsmitch Frank was saying come to Venus lover lads Reynolds told Ramos but good luck jeez I'm going to get sentimental luck everybody come on Charlie let's roll I don't want the slobber I'll catch up with you all watch Gimp promised so long Frank yeah over the milky way Frankie Ostelewego gang that was all Ramos the big mouth had to say he wasn't glum exactly but he was sort of preoccupied and impatient the five remaining rings a wonderful sight Frank thought began to move out of orbit ships with sails set for far ports no mere ships of the sea were nothing anymore but would all of the bunch survive Charlie Reynolds the cool one the most likely to succeed waved jauntily and carelessly from his rotating accelerating ring two and two wagged arms stiffly from his Mitch's story's bub lightest loaded was jumping ahead but you could hear him playing old man river on his mouth organ inside his helmet the Cusack's bubs towing massive loads were accelerating slowest with the ex-grid iron twins riding the rigging but their rings would wind up to star specs before long too the job scouts rocket carrying Ramos and Gimp began to flame for a landing at serene in the airtight cabin of Xavier Rodin's vehicle Frank Nelson and David Lester had read and signed their contracts and had received their copies Rodin didn't smile now we'll go down and have a look at the place I'm investigating he said end of chapter three part two chapter four part one of the planet strappers this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the planet strappers by Raymond Z. Gollum chapter four part one Frank Nelson's view of empire building on the moon was brief all encompassing and far too sketchy to be very satisfying as Rodin turned about in his universal gimbaled pilot's seat spiraled his battered rocket down backwards with the small nuclear jets firing forward in jerky tooth cracking bursts to check speed further it was necessary to go around the abortive sub-planet that had always accompanied the earth almost once to reduce velocity enough for a landing thus Nelson glimpsed much territory the splashed irregular shape of Sarantitis the international base on the mayor the dust sea of the same name the radiating threads of trails and embryo highways the ever widening separation of isolated domes and scattered human diggings and workings fairly scratched in the lunar crust as at a still great height Frank's gaze swept outward from the greatest center of human endeavor on the moon it was much the same around Tycho station except that this base was smaller and was built in a great white raid crater whose walls were pierced by tunnels for exit and entry the tovy camp glimpsed later and only at the distant horizon seemed not very different from the others except for the misleading patterns of camouflage that the tovies should have an exclusive center of their own was not even legal according to UN agreements but facts were facts and what did anyone do about them Frank was not very concerned with such issues just then for there was an impression that was overpowering the slightness of the intrusion of his kind on a two thousand something mile in diameter globe of incredible desert overlapping ring walls craters centered in radiating streaks of white ash mountain ranges that sank gradually into dust which once two billion years ago after probable ejection from volcanoes without floated in a then palpable atmosphere but now to a lone man down there they would be bleak plains stretching to a disconcertingly near horizon Frank Nelson's view was one of fascination behind which was the chilly thought this is my choice here is where I will have to live for a short while that can seem ages space looks tame now white worse how about Lester Frank looked around him like Rodin Lester and he had both pivoted around in their gimbled seats to which they had safety strapped themselves to face the now forward pointing stern jets Rodin looking more trapped mouth than before had said nothing further as he guided the craft gingerly lower Lester was biting his heavy lip his narrow chin trembled a faint whisper had begun as far back as the 1940s astronomers had begun to suspect that the moon was after all not entirely airless there would be traces of heavy gases argon, neon, xenon krypton and volcanic carbon dioxide it would be expanded far upward above the surface because the feeble lunar gravity could not give it sufficient weight to compress it very much so it would thin out much less rapidly with altitude than does the terrestrial atmosphere from a density of perhaps one twelve thousandth of earth sea level norm at the moon's surface it would thin to perhaps one twenty thousandth at a height of eighty miles being thus roughly equivalent in density to earth's gaseous envelope at the same level and at this height was the terrestrial zone where meteors flare this theory about the lunar atmosphere had proven to be correct the tiny density was sufficient to give the moon almost as effective an atmospheric meteor screen as the earth's the relatively low velocity needed to maintain vehicles in circum-lunar orbits made its danger to such vehicles small it could help reduce speed for landing it caused that innocuous hiss of passage but it could sometimes be treacherous Frank thought of these things as the long minutes dragged perhaps Rodin hunched intently over his controls had reason enough there to be silent the actual landing still had to be made in the only way possible on worlds whose air covering was so close to a complete vacuum as this like a cat climbing down a tree backwards with flaming jets still holding it up and spinning gyros keeping it vertical the rocket lowered gradually the seats swung level keeping their occupants right side up there was a hovering pause then the faint jolt of contact the jet growls stopped complete silence closed in like a hammer blow do you men know where you are? Rodin asked after a moment at the edge of Maranova I think Frank answered his eyes combing the demon's landscape beyond the thick darkened glass of the cabin's sports the dazzling sun was low early morning of two weeks of daylight the shadows were long black shafts yes there's tower rock Lester quavered and the Arabian range going down under the dust of the plane correct Rodin answered we're well over the rim of the far side you'll never see the earth from here the nearest settlement is 800 miles away and it's tovy at that this is a really remote spot as I intimated before he paused as if to let the significant information be appreciated so that's settled he went on now I'll enlighten you without what else you need to know come along Frank Nielsen felt the dust crunch under the rubberized boot soles of his archer there was a brief walk then a pause Rodin pointed to a pit dynamited out of the dust and lava rock and to small piles of grayish material beside six inch borings rectangularly spaced over a wide area there is an extensive underlying of gypsum here he said the water bearing rock a mile away there's an ample deposit of graphite carbon thus there exists a complete local source of hydrogen oxygen and carbon ideal for synthesizing various hydrocarbonic chemicals or making complicated polyethylene materials such as stellene so useful in space lead too is not very far off silicon is of course available everywhere there'll be a plant belonging to Hoffman chemicals here before too long I was prospecting for them for a site like this actually I was very lucky locating this spot almost right away which is fortunate they think I'm still looking and aren't concerned Rodin was quiet for a moment before continuing the pupils of his eyes dilated and contracted strangely because I found something else he went on it was luck beyond dreams and it must be my very own I intend to investigate it thoroughly even if it takes years come along again this time the walk was about 300 yards past three small stellene domes the parabolic mirrors of a solar powered plant a sun energized tractor an onward almost to the mountain wall embedded in the dust of the mare there Frank noticed a circular glassy area strips of magnesium were laid like bridging planks across chunks of lava and in the dust all around were countless curious scrambled marks Rodin stood carefully on a magnesium strip and looked back at Nelson and Lester his brows crinkling as if he was suspicious that he had already told them too much Frank Nelson became more aware of the heavy automatic pistol at Rodin's hip and felt a tingling urge to get away from here and from this man as if a vast mistake had been made it is necessary for you to be informed about some matters Rodin said slowly for instance unless it is otherwise disturbed a footprint or the like will endure for millions of years on the moon as surely as if impressed and granite because there is no weather left to rub it out you will be working here I am preserving some of these markings so please walk on these strips which Dutch and I have laid down Rodin indicated a large archer clad man who also carried an automatic he had the face of a playful but dangerous mastiff he was hunkered down in a shallow pit scanning the ground with a watch and a nice device probably intended for locating objects hidden just beneath the surface electronically beside him was a screen bottomed container no doubt meant for sifting dust greetings novices he gruffed with genial contempt but his pale eyes beyond the curve of his helmet had a masked puzzlement as if something from the lunar desolation had gotten into his brain permanently not altogether clear to him Rodin pulled a shiny object from his thigh pouch and held it out in a gloved palm for his new employees to peer at one of the things we found he remarked incomplete if we could for instance locate the other parts Frank saw a little cylinder with gray coils wrapped inside it a power chamber perhaps to be lined with magnetic force the only thing that could contain what amounted to a tiny 20 million degree piece of a star's hot heart it was a familiar principle for releasing and managing nuclear power but the device perhaps part of a small weapon was subtly marked by the differences of another technology I believe I have said enough Rodin stated with a thin smile though some facts will be unavoidably obvious to you working here but at least I will let you figure them out for yourselves since you are well informed young men by your own statement here Rodin looked hard at the pale unsteady lester we will go back now so I can show you the camp its routine and your place in it we have three domes garden and living quarters with a workshop and supply dome between them this proved to be okay two bunks and the usual compact accessories leave your archers in the lockers outside your door here are your keys Rodin suggested Helen will have a meal ready for you in the adjacent dining room afterwards take a helpful tranquilizer and sleep no work until you awaken I shall leave you now it was a good meal steak cultured and grown in a nourishing solution on the moon perhaps at serene much as Dr. Alexis Corral had long ago grown and kept for years a living fragment of a chicken's heart potatoes, peas, and tomatoes too all had become common staples in hydroponic gardens off the earth what do you make of what Rodin was talking about Les Frank asked conversationally but David Lester was lost and vague he almost untouched I don't know he stammered scared and embittered further by this bad sign Frank turned to Helen and how are you he asked hopefully I'm all right she answered without a trace of encouragement she was in jeans maybe she was 18 maybe she was Rodin's daughter her face was as reddened as a peasant it was hard to tell that she was a girl at all she wasn't a girl I mean that she was a zombie with about 10 words in her vocabulary how could a girl have gotten to this impossible region anyway now Frank tried to delay Lester's inevitable complete crack-up by encouraging his interest in their situation it's big less he said it's got to be an expedition came here to investigate the moon it couldn't be any more recently than 60 million years ago if it was from as close as Mars or the asteroid planet two adjacent worlds were competing then the scientists know both were smaller than Earth cooled faster bore life sooner which sent the party I saw where their rocket ship must have stood a glassy spot where the dust was once fused from all the markings they must have been around for months nowhere else on the moon that I ever heard of is there anything similar left so maybe they did most of their survey work by gliding somehow above the ground not disturbing the dust I think the little indentations we saw look Martian that would be a break Mars still has weather archeological objects wouldn't stay new there for millions of years but here they would Rodin is right he's got something that'll make him famous yes I think I'll have a devil killer and hit the stack Lester said oh all right Frank agreed wherely me likewise Frank awoke naturally from a dreamless slumber after a breakfast of eggs that had been a powder Lester and he were at the diggings sifting dust for the dropped and discarded items of an alien visitation thus Frank's job began in the excitement of a hunt as if for ancient treasure for a long time through many ten-hour shifts Frank Melson found perhaps unfortunate lethal a forgetfulness for his worries and for the mind poisoning effects of his silence and desolation in this remote part of the moon they found things thinly scattered in the ten acre area that Rodin meant tediously to sift the screws and nuts bright and new were almost earthly but would anyone ever know what plastic rings were for or the sticks of cellulose or the curved wire device with fuzz at the ends but then would an off-earth being ever guess the use of say a toothbrush or a bobby pin the metal cylinders neatly cut open might have contained food dried leaf-like dregs still remained inside there were small bottles made of pearly glass too empty except for gummy traces they were with the stuff like rubber there was also crumpled scraps like paper or cellophane most of them marked with designs or symbols after ten-earth days in the lunar afternoon Frank found the grave he shouted as his brushing hands uncovered a glassy flexible surface Rodin took charge at once back he commanded then he was avidly busy with the pit working as carefully as a fine jeweler he cleared more dust away not with a trowel not with his gloved fingers but with a little nylon brush the thing was like a seven-pointed star four feet across and was the ripped transparent casing of its body and limbs another version of a vacuum armor the material resembled stilling as in an archer there were metal details metal electronic and perhaps nuclear in the punctured covering the corpse was dry of course stomach, brain sack rough pitted skin terminal tendrils some coarse some fine almost has spread for doing the most delicate work half out of protecting sheets at the end of its arms or legs in the armor the being must have walked like a piece or it might have even rolled like a wheel the bluish tint of its crusty body was half fade at the tan perhaps no one would ever explain the gapping wound that must have killed the creature unless it had been a rockfall Martian Lester gasped at least we know they were like this yes Rodin agreed softly I'll look after this find moving very carefully even in the weak lunar gravity he picked up the product of another evolution and bore it away to the shop dome Frank was furious this was his discovery and he was not even allowed to examine it still something warned him not to argue in a little while his treasure hunter's eagerness came back holding out through most of that protracted lunar night when they worked their ten hour periods with electric lamps attached to their shoulders but gradually Frank began to emerge from his single line of attention knowing that Lester must soon collapse and waiting intensely for it to happen was part of the cause but there was much more there was the fact that direct radio communication with the earth around the curve of the moon was impossible the Tobi's didn't like radio relay orbiters useful for being short wave messages they had destroyed the few unmanned ones that had been put up there were several times when he casually sent a slender beam of radio energy groping out towards Mars and the asteroid belt trying to call story or the Cusacks and had received no answer well this was not remarkable those regions were enormous beyond imagining you had to pinpoint your thread of tiny energy almost precisely but once for an instant while at work he heard a voice which could be Mitch's story call Frank, Frankie in his helmet phone there was no chance for him to get an instrument fix on the direction of the incoming waves and of course his name Frank was a common one but an immediate attempt to beam Mars yellow in the black sky and its vicinity produced no result his trapped feelings increased and nostalgia began to bore into him he had memories of lost sounds Rodin tried to combat the thick silence with taped popular music broadcast on a very low power from a field set at the Diggings but the girls voices singing richly only made matters worse for Frank Nielsen and other memories piled up on him Jarveston, Minnesota Wind, hay smell car smell, home Cripes, damn Lester's habit of muttering unintelligibly to himself was much worse now Frank was expecting him to start screaming at any minute Frank hadn't tried to talk to him much and Lester, more introverted than ever was no starter of conversations but now at the sunrise SOB was it possible that they had been here almost a month Frank at the Diggings indulged in some muttering himself are you all right Frank? Lester asked mildly not altogether Frank Nielsen snapped dryly how about you? oh I believe I'm okay at last Lester replied with startling brightness I was afraid I wouldn't be I guess I had an inferiority complex and there was also something to live up to you see my dad was here with the original Clifford expedition we've always agreed that I should become a scientist too mom went along with that until dad was killed here well I'm over to hump now you see I'm so interested in everything around me that the desolation has a cushion of romance that protects me I don't just see the bleakness I imagine the moon as it once was with volcanoes spitting and with thunderous sounds in its steamy atmosphere I see it when the Martians were here and I've seen it at Earth too though there all evidence weathered away I even see the moon as it is now noticing the details that are easy to miss the little balls of ash that got stuck together by raindrops two billion years ago and the pulpy hard shelled plants that you can still find alive if you know where to look there are some up on the ridge where I often go when off shift carbon dioxide vapor must still come out of the deep crack there anyhow they used to say that a lonesome person with perhaps a touch of schizophrenia might do better off the Earth than the more usual types Frank Nelson was surprised as much by this open self-analytical explanation and the clearing up of the family history behind him has by the miracle that had happened Cripes was it possible that in his own way Lester was more rugged than anybody else of the old bunch of course even Lester was somewhat in wonder himself and had to talk it all out to somebody good for you Les Nelson enthused relieved only well skip it for now two work periods later he approached Rodin it will take months to sift all this dust he said I may not want to stay that long the pupils of Rodin's eyes flickered again oh he said per contract you can quit anytime but I provide no transportation do you want to walk 800 miles to a Tovian station on the moon it is difficult to keep hired help so one must rely on practical counter circumstances besides I wouldn't want you to be at Serentitis base or anywhere else talking about my discovery Nelson I'm afraid you're stuck now Nelson had the result of his perhaps in cautious test statement he knew that he was trapped by a dangerous tyrant such as might spring up in any new lawless country it was just a thought sir he said being as placating as he dared and controlling his rising fury for there was something that hardened too quickly in Rodin he had the fame and glory bug and could be savage about it if you wanted to get away you had the scheme by yourself there wasn't only Rodin to get past there was Dutch the big ape with a dangling pistol Nelson decided to work quietly as before for a while there were a few more significant finds what might have been a nuclear operated clock broken of course and some diamond drill bits though the long lunar day dragged intolerably there was the paradox of time seeming to escape too daylight ended with the sunset two weeks of darkness was no period for any moves at sun up a second month was almost finished and ten acres of dust was less than half sifted in the shop and supply dome David Lester had been chemically analyzing the dregs of various Martian containers for Rodin in spare moments he classified those scarce and incredibly hardy lunar growths that he had found in the foothills of the Arabian range some had hard bright green tendrils that during daylight opened out of woody shells full of spongy hollows has an insulation against the fearsome cold of night some were so small that they could only be seen under a microscope Frank's interest here however pawled quickly and Lester in his mumbling studious preoccupation was no companionable antidote for loneliness Frank tried a new approach on Helen who really was Rodin's daughter do you like poetry Helen I used to memorize Keats frost Shakespeare they were there in the dining room she brightened a little I remember some do you remember clouds the sound of water the grass she actually smiled wistfully yes Sunday afternoons a blue dress my mother when she was alive a dog I had once Helen Rodin wasn't quite a zombie after all maybe he could win her confidence if he went slow but twenty hours later at the diggings when Dutch stumbled over Frank's sifter she reverted I'll learn you to leave junk in my way or Dutch shouted then he tossed Frank 30 feet Frank came back kicked him in a sinly armored stomach knocked him down and tried to get his gun but Dutch grabbed him with those big arms Helen was also pointing a small pistol at him she was trembling dad will handle this she said Rodin came over you don't have much choice do you Nelson he sneered however perhaps Dutch was crude I apologize for him and I will deduct $100 from his pay and give it to you much obliged Frank said dryly after that everything happened to build his tensions to the breaking point at a work period's end near the lunar noon he heard a voice in his helmet phone Frank this is two and two why don't you ever call or answer two and twos usually plaintive voice had a special quality as if he was maybe in trouble this time Frank got a directional fix adjusted his antenna and called hey two and two hey pal it's me Frank Nelson Venus was in the sky not too close to the sun but still though Nelson called repeatedly there was no reply he got back to quarters and looked over not only his radio but his entire archer the radio had been fiddled with delicately it would still work but not in a narrow enough beam to reach millions of miles or even 500 an intricate focusing device had been removed from a wave guide that wasn't the worst that was wrong with the archer the small nuclear battery which energized the moisture reclaimer the heating units not only for turning its pump but for providing the intense internal illumination necessary to promote the release of oxygen in the photosynthetic process of the chlorophane when there was no sun had been replaced by a chemical battery of a far smaller active life span the armor locker Rodin had extra keys and could tamper and make replacements at any time he considered it necessary Lester had wandered a field somewhere when he showed up Nelson jarred him out of his studious preoccupations long enough for them both to examine his armor same identical story Rodin made sure Frank gruffed that SOB put us on a real short tether David Lester looked frightened for a minute then he seemed to ease maybe it doesn't make any difference he said though I'd like to call my mother but I'm doing things I like after a while when the job is finished he'll let us go yeah Frank breathed there was the big question Nelson figured that an old corny pattern stuck out all over Rodin personal glory emphasized to a point where it got beyond sense and wouldn't that unreason be more likely to get worse in the terrible lunar desert than it would on earth would Rodin ever release them wouldn't he fear encroachment on his archeological success even after all his data had been made public this was all surmise prediction of course but his extreme precautions already taken did not look good on the moon there could easily be an arranged accident killing Lester and him, Frank Nelson and maybe even Dutch Pupils had that nervous way of expanding and contracting rapidly too Nelson figured that he might be reading the sign somewhat warpedly himself still at the end of another shift Nelson took a walk farther than ever before up through a twisted past that penetrated to the other side of the Arabian mountains he still had that much freedom he wanted to think things out in bitter frustrating reversal of all his former urges to get off the earth he wanted, like a desperate weakling to be back home up beyond the Arabians he saw the tread marks of a small tractor vehicle in a patch of dust there was a single boot print a short distance further on there was another he examined them with a quizzical excitement but there weren't any more for miles ahead and behind unimpressable lava rock extended another curious thing happened only minutes later a thousand miles overhead out of reach of his sabotage to transmitter one of those around the moon tour-bubs, like the unfortunate Farside, was passing he heard the program they were broadcasting a male voice crewed out what must be a new popular song he had heard so few new songs Serene found a queen her name is Eileen Nelson's reaction wasn't even a thought at first it was only an eerie tingle in on his flesh then realizing what a suspicion was he listened further with all his nerves taught but no explanation of the song's origin was given he even tried futile to radio the pleasure-bub full of earth tourists it minutes it had sunk behind the abrupt horizon leaving him with his unanswered wonder girls he thought in the midst of his utter solitude all girls to love and have Eileen could it be little old Eileen Sands up on her ballet dancing toes sometimes at Hendricks and humming herself a tune Eileen who had deserted the bunch meaning to approach space in a feminine way holy cow and even she got in that far so fast suddenly the possibility became a symbol of what the others of the bunch must be accomplishing while here he was trapped stuck futile inside a few bleak square miles on the far side of earth's own satellite so here was another force of Frank Nelson's desperation he made up his mind which perhaps just then was a bit mad but calm he returned to camp slept, worked, slept and worked again he decided that there was no help to be had from Lester who was still no man of action better to work alone anyway fortunately on the moon it was easy to call deadly forces to one's aid something as simple as possible the trick should be of course all he wanted to do was to get the upper hand on Rodin and Dutch take over the camp get the missing parts of his radio and archer borrow the solar tractor and get out of here to serentide his space serene his only preparation was to sharpen the edges of a diamond shaped trowel used at the dickings with a piece of pumice then he waited end of chapter 4 part 1