"Gates." Gates was the relief operator at the ethertype.
"Lord! Maybe you're right."
"Sh-h!" Crane warned. "Gates is due any minute."
"So what's any of this to do with Luna going haywire?" asked Bill
thoughtfully. "If I thought--"
"Let's talk about it tomorrow," whispered Crane as footsteps neared.
Gates came in, sleepy-eyed, sullen. He ignored them both.
"Going to turn in," Crane winked at Bonwitt. "Sleepy. Bye."
"Me, too," grinned the engineer.
But he went up to the dome and mulled things over for hours.
* * * * *
Bonwitt couldn't connect the moon's eccentric behavior with Peterson's.
But something was up. If personal, okay; if against Atomic Power,
something else again. Looking out first over the moon's broken desolate
surface, then up at the bright orb of Earth, the engineer tried to
rationalize things.
It couldn't be against Atomic. Mercury is something you just can't
steal. It's heavy. Atomic is the only big market for it. You can't make
big-time power on Earth without mercury, and Atomic has the monopoly.
You have to have a fleet of space ships to transport it--and a market.
No; something bigger was involved; something simpler.
Peterson. What was he up to? He had long been a trusted man in various
departments of Atomic. Where did Gates fit? The engineer began thinking
over his own ten years with the Company.
Three years on Luna. Rotten. But you have to mine mercury for the
terrestrial power plants. The moon was the only place. Lucky for
Earth, in 2012, when mercury deposits petered out in Rhodesia, the
first rocket to the moon found that Luna's rays were mostly of purest
hydrargyrum. Pure metallic mercury, frozen solid in the long Lunar
night, liquid in the equally long day.
And, fortunate for Atomic Power, World Government had granted them
exclusive rights to its mining.
But you couldn't fit Peterson into any of this. What could he do to the
immensely influential Atomic Corporation? Or to Luna? Bill Bonwitt gave
it up and went to bed. It was just midnight (Lunar) and only fourteen
more days until sunup. Dozing off comfortably, Bonwitt wished he could
sleep that long.
* * * * *
The ethertype man awakened him a few hours later. "Wake up, Chief," he
husked, shaking, his teeth a-chatter.