Cold and lifeless, the surface of the moon expanded before them. The
six man crew of the spaceship sat in the control cabin. Alan was at the
controls. The reporter stood at the door, facing them with his back to
the companionway. The atomic pistol was unwavering in his hand.
"You were at the Security Council meeting," Alan said bitterly. "You're
working for Keifer. You sent those men to kidnap Laura. Then, in the
confusion at the spacefield, you claimed the President had designated
you to cover the story for Earth, and--"
The reporter nodded. "A man's a fool not to join the winning side while
he can. You'll take this ship down in Tycho crater. You'll land near
the old Terra Mines dome. They'll drag you in through the domelock with
a tractor beam. You'll be able to watch them launch the bomb to Earth."
Jagged, pock-marked and buried in its mantle of pumice, the surface
of the moon sped by below them. Dark, somber _maria_, the broad deep
valleys of the moon, appeared, were reached and left behind. Rills cut
tortuously across the moonscape; rays like molten gold radiated from
some of the craters.
Finally, the great ringwall of Tycho crater flashed into view. At one
side, just inside the ringwall of the crater and more than two-score
miles from the lonely central peaks, the glassite dome which had housed
Terra Mines in the early days of space travel could be seen.
Alan brought the spaceship down on its tail, its rocket exhaust
blasting the pumice below with blistering heat.
There was still time, Alan thought.
But they were helpless.
He wondered if, in decisive moments, history was full of such
traitors--men like the reporter who would soon bring civilization on
Earth, life on Earth, to an end when he returned Alan and his crew
over to Keifer's Federation forces within the dome. He shrugged--then
wondered also how strongly a man had to believe to forfeit his life for
a principle.
For if he tried anything, the reporter would kill him.
If he didn't, you could count the time remaining for Earth in hours.
Abruptly, he slapped his hand across the firing lever, heard the surge
of sudden power at the same moment that the ship rocked and plunged
moonward on its side. There were shouts behind him in the cabin. There
was a split-second of confusion.
Alan spun around and dove across the room for the reporter. The man had
fallen and was just climbing to his feet when Alan reached him. He must
have decided there was no time to fire. Instead, he hurled the heavy
weapon at Alan.
It struck his shoulder, fell away. Then he was on the reporter,
reaching for his throat, choking him, strangling.... Hands dragged him
clear.
"He's unconscious," someone said. "Lay off, Tremaine."
There was a lurch as tractor beams from the dome caught and held
the spaceship. They were tugged through the domelock but all were
heavily-armed with atomic rifles and pistols when the ship came to a
stop inside.
* * * * *
Another ship lay on its side within the half-mile-in-diameter dome. A
dozen men stood about, waiting for them to be delivered like sheep.
Alan led his men outside into the cool, canned air of the dome. Their
concentrated fire was unexpected and deadly, dropping the Federation
men where they stood. Three or four of them managed to crawl behind the
second ship, from where they returned the fire. One of Alan's men fell.
"Quick!" Alan cried. "Three of you cut around the front of the ship.
Stan and I will slip around the tail rockets."
Without waiting for an answer, he led the pilot through a fierce
barrage of atomic pellets toward the rear of the spaceship. As the
missiles struck the ground on all sides of them, they exploded
violently, kicking up man-tall geysers of luna pumice.
"You're covered from both sides!" Alan shouted, poking his head
cautiously around the rocket tubes. His answer was a stream of atomic
pellets, which struck the tubes and fused them. Ignoring the deadly
fire, Alan plunged on, feeling the kick of his own atomic rifle as he
triggered shot after shot blindly ahead of him.
There were two men left alive back there, standing back to back,
trembling, their hands high over their heads.
"Where's Keifer?" Alan barked at them.
One pointed vaguely outside the dome. "The central mountains," he said.
"What are you talking about?"
"A shipload of technicians brought the bomb there from the space-warp.
That's where Terra Mines had its launching equipment. Honest. I swear
it's the truth."
"Is Keifer there too?"
"Yes. With the girl. They went out in one of Terra Mines' old luna
tanks to watch the launching."
"When is it?"
"Half an hour, maybe less," the Federation soldier said. "You couldn't
stop them. You'll never get there in time."
"Is there another tank?"
The soldier nodded, pointed across the pumice to a squat green vehicle
with caterpillar treads. Alan was already running for it and calling
over his shoulder. "Stay here. If the remaining Federation ships try
to come down, use the dome-guns on them. Stan, you come with me."
The pilot sprinted after him. Together they entered the moon tank,
which was not airtight. They found Terra Mines spacesuits inside, the
ancient, long-unused type that looked like deep sea suits. The tank's
rocket engine sputtered and caught. The tank lumbered toward the
domelock and through it while they donned the spacesuits.
Then they were bouncing soundlessly across the airless surface of
Tycho crater, leaving the dome far behind them. Earth was above them
in the sky, in the quarter-phase. You could see part of North America
reflecting sunlight. Blue-black, the Pacific Ocean was in shadow.
Ahead loomed the central mountains of Tycho crater, biting into the
black sky, saw-toothed, for fifteen thousand feet. On labored the moon
tank, climbing now, its old engine whining a protest against the steep
grade, the sound echoing strangely inside the vehicle because outside
in the luna vacuum it could not be heard at all. They crossed the first
peak of the range, looked down on a great cauldron in the rock, a
crater within the crater, a mile across.
At one end was a Federation spaceship, standing on its tail rockets
and pointing up at the sky like a gleaming needle.
At the other end was the launching platform, massive, indistinct in
the gloomy shadows of the mountains. On the platform, partially out of
shadow, rested the cobalt bomb, big as a small spaceship.
Another tank sped toward them across the uneven moonscape. Two men were
perched atop it in red spacesuits, firing already although they were
still out of range.
* * * * *
Alan tapped Stan on the shoulder, told the pilot he was going outside.
He slipped through the hatch and climbed on top of the lurching tank,
squatting there and slamming a fresh ammo pan into his atomic rifle.
The trip across the crater had consumed ten minutes of the time left
for Earth. What remained--twenty minutes? Twenty-five?
Suddenly, the moon tank shuddered beneath Alan's feet. They had come
within range sooner than he had expected. He felt himself hurled away,
and tumbled across the rocks as the tank burst briefly into flame,
devouring in seconds the oxygen stored in the fuel tanks. With an
eerie, noiseless blast, the tank exploded.
Alan scrambled forward across the rocks. Somehow, he had managed to
hold his atomic rifle. He wondered if the mechanism had been damaged
by his fall.
He didn't have time to think about it. The other tank, now less than
fifty yards away, was coming toward him. He fired once, forced to
reveal his position. A spacesuited figure fell from the tank, but
another climbed up through the hatch to join the man still kneeling
there.
The tank was thirty yards away now, still coming.
Concealed partially behind an out-cropping of rock, Alan fired again,
saw a second figure tumble off the roof of the tank, rolling down a
steep incline. The third man was returning his fire, but wildly. At the
last moment he tried to scramble within the hatch, but his glassite
helmet exploded as one of Alan's pellets caught it.
The tank was upon him, its caterpillar treads rolling soundlessly
across the rock. Flinging his rifle out of the way, Alan dove between
the two great treads and clung there. He could feel the jagged rocks
cutting into his spacesuit, scraping it, weakening the fabric. In
seconds, the fabric would rupture.
There was a hatch on the under-belly of the tank. Dragged along, Alan
held on with one hand and pried at the hatch with the other. He was
bruised and shaken by the rocks.
The hatch swung clear.
Alan chinned himself into the tank. A spacesuited figure sat over the
controls. Another one was staring at Alan through the glassite helmet
of a modern spacesuit.
It was Laura.
He didn't know if she would recognize him through the visor of his
ancient suit. She screamed, "Alan! Look out!"
Keifer was rising from the controls, plunging toward him. Alan met him
half way over the open hatch, grappled with him there. In Keifer's hand
was an atomic pistol. He couldn't bring it down to bear on Alan, but
was beating him across the head with it, the sound of metal striking
metal booming in Alan's ears. If his helmet had been glassite, he
thought, Keifer could have killed him.
He lost his footing and slipped, spread-eagling over the open hatch.
Keifer fell on him, pushing, trying to force him through. "You can't
stop the bomb," he said, his voice cold and metallic over the suit
radio. "It's all automatic now."
For answer, Alan swung his metal-shod fists at Keifer's glassite
helmet. He felt himself slipping. In seconds, Keifer's weight would
drive him through the hatch. He pounded the glassite helmet above him.
Blindly, he kept on pounding it. His legs were slipping, dangling
through the hatch over the jagged rocks. The slightest rip in the
fabric of his suit would bring instant death.
All at once, a crack appeared in Keifer's helmet, running from crown to
chin. Alan struck again with his right fist. The crack became a hole.
Keifer opened his mouth to scream, but then his face was swelling,
bloated--became a shapeless thing which no longer could fit within the
helmet.
Trembling, Alan stood up and rushed to the control. He saw that Laura
was already heading the moon tank back toward the launching platform.
He had a few seconds in which to play....
The tank lurched to a stop beside the platform.
* * * * *
Hand over hand, Alan was climbing the scaffold. He reached the platform
with the tank's atomic rifle strapped across his shoulders. Half a
dozen technicians were preparing to leave.
"Shut it off!" Alan shouted. "Don't launch that bomb!"
"We can't stop it now. The mechanism is set."
"I'll kill you if I have to."
"We can't, don't you understand? The bomb will be launched in five
minutes--no, four minutes and fifty seconds now. Once set, it's fully
automatic. We didn't want to set it. Keifer made us do it. You're Alan
Tremaine, aren't you?" the technician asked. "We're on your side,
Tremaine. Most of the Outworlds are, ever since Earth's broadcast. But
Keifer came here with a hard core of his followers in a small fleet
and--"
"Never mind the talk. Can't you render the bomb harmless?"
The technician shook his head within the glassite helmet.
Overhead, the quarter-phase Earth was shining brightly, waiting
helplessly.
"It's the radioactive cobalt that will do the damage," Alan said.
"An atomic trigger for the hydrogen bomb, a hydrogen trigger for the
cobalt, right?"
"Essentially, yes."
"Then strip off the cobalt, you fools!"
"Three minutes," someone said. "We've got to get out of here. The
after-burners of the launching charge will cremate us."
"It can be done," one of the technicians told Alan, "but I don't think
you have the time."
"How, man? Tell me how!"
"Use your rifle. There's a seam running around the bomb. See? See it.
If you can cut around the whole seam, the cobalt should fall away in
two hemispheres. A hydrogen bomb alone would be launched at Earth, but
it should fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean."
"Two minutes, forty seconds."
The technicians moved about uneasily. Two of them began to climb down
the scaffold. The rest remained to watch Alan. They would save the
Earth or perish with him.
Alan raised his atomic rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the thin welded
seam about the huge bomb, and began to fire. At first there was
nothing. The pellets hit the bomb, which could only be triggered by an
atomic implosion at its core, and exploded there.
"A minute and a half," someone said, his voice hoarse over Alan's suit
radio.
The seam was widening, became a gap a foot across. Alan continued
firing, the rifle slapping back against his numb shoulder. The crack
spread around the circumference of the bomb.
"One minute to blast-off!"
Alan fired his last volley, stood there in despair. He had run out of
ammunition.
The cobalt outer skin of the bomb shook, spread apart, fell away in two
equal hemispheres. The technicians were plunging down the scaffold,
Alan right behind them. They tumbled inside the moon tank.
Laura didn't have to be told. The tank bounced away at full speed.
Behind them, a brilliant flash lit the lunar sky. For a moment, Alan
could see the hydrogen bomb streaking Earthward, a silver speck against
the blackness. Then it was gone. It was a vast trigger now, and nothing
more. Harmlessly, it would explode in the Pacific Ocean, like dozens of
tests which had been conducted there.
The Outworlds would agree to Equal Union now. Alan knew that. The
technician had told him. They had never liked the war. They were ready
to rally behind his name. There would be some ugliness between Earth
and the Outworlds for a time, because of what had almost happened. But
it would pass.
The Lunar Mines dome loomed ahead of them. The domelock opened to admit
them.
"I wish we were inside already," Laura said, "where there's some air."
"What for?" Alan asked her.
"So I can take off this helmet and kiss you."
Nothing would suit Alan better. Now, at last, they were inside. He took
off his helmet.