_Why should people hate vultures? After all, a vulture never
kills anyone..._
The launch carrying the mail, supplies and replacements eased slowly
in toward the base, keeping the bulk of the Moon between itself and
Earth. Captain Ebor, seated at the controls, guided the ship to the
rocky uneven ground with the easy carelessness of long practice, then
cut the drive, got to his walking tentacles, and stretched. Donning
his spacesuit, he left the ship to go over to the dome and meet
Darquelnoy, the base commander.
An open ground-car was waiting for him beside the ship. The driver,
encased in his spacesuit, crossed tentacles in a sloppy salute, and
Ebor returned the gesture quite as sloppily. Here on the periphery,
cast formalities were all but dispensed with.
Ebor stood for a moment and watched the unloading. The cargo crew,
used to working in spacesuits, had one truck already half full. The
replacements, unused to spacesuits and, in addition, awed and a bit
startled by the bleakness of this satellite, were moving awkwardly
down the ramp.
Satisfied that the unloading was proceeding smoothly, Ebor climbed
aboard the ground-car, awkward in his suit, and settled back heavily
in the seat to try to get used to gravity again. The gravity of this
Moon was slight, of course--barely one-sixth the gravity of the Home
World or most of the colonies--but it still took getting used to,
after a long trip in free-fall.
The driver sat at the controls, and the car jerked into motion. Ebor,
looking up, noticed for the first time that the dome wasn't there any
more. The main dome, housing the staff and equipment of the base, just
wasn't there.
And the driver, he now saw, was aiming the car toward the nearby
crater wall. Extending two of his eyes till they almost touched the
face-plate of his helmet, he could see activity at the base of the
crater wall, and what looked like an air-lock entrance. He wondered
what had caused the change, which had obviously been done at top
speed. The last time he'd been here, not very long ago, the dome had
still been intact, and there had been no hint of any impending move
underground.
The driver steered the car into the open air lock, and they waited
until the first cargo truck had lumbered in after them. Then the outer
door closed, the pumps were turned on, and in a minute the red light
flashed over the inner door. Ebor removed the spacesuit gratefully,
left it in the car, and walked clumsily through the inner door into
the new base.
A good job had been done on it, for all the speed. Rooms and corridors
has been melted out of the rock, the floors had been carpeted, the
walls painted, and the ceiling lined with light panels. All of the
furnishings had been transferred here from the original dome, and the
result looked, on the whole, quite livable. As livable as the dome had
been, at least.
But the base commander, Darquelnoy, waiting for his old friend Ebor
near the inner door of the lock, looked anything but happy with the
arrangement. At Ebor's entrance he raised a limp tentacle in weary
greeting and said, "Come in, my friend, come in. Tell me the new jokes
from home. I could use some cheering up."
"None worth telling," said Ebor. He looked around. "What's happened
here?" he asked. "Why've you gone underground? Why do you need
cheering up?"
Darquelnoy clicked his eyes in despair. "Those _things_!" he cried.
"Those annoying little creatures on that blasted planet up there!"
Ebor repressed an amused ripple. He knew Darquelnoy well enough to
know that the commander invariably overstated things. "What've they
been up to, Dar?" he asked. "Come on, you can tell me over a hot cup
of restno."
"I've been practically living on the stuff for the last two dren,"
said Darquelnoy hopelessly. "Well, I suppose another cup won't kill
me. Come on to my quarters."
"I've worked up a fine thirst on the trip," Ebor told him.
* * * * *
The two walked down the long corridor together and Ebor said, "Well?
What happened?"
"They came here," Darquelnoy told him simply. At Ebor's shocked look,
he rippled in wan amusement and said, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as it
might have been, I suppose. It was just that we had to rush around so
frantically, unloading and dismantling the dome, getting this place
ready--"
"What do you mean, they _came_ here?" demanded Ebor.
"They are absolutely the worst creatures for secrecy in the entire
galaxy!" exclaimed Darquelnoy in irritation. "Absolutely the worst."
"Then you've picked up at least one of their habits," Ebor told him.
"Now stop talking in circles and tell me what happened."
"They built a spaceship, is the long and the short of it," Darquelnoy
answered.