FIRST on the MOON
by JEFF SUTTON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York 36, N.Y.
FIRST ON THE MOON
Copyright ©, 1958, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U. S. A.
TO SANDY
SUICIDE RACE TO LUNA
The four men had been scrutinized, watched, investigated, and
intensively trained for more than a year. They were the best men to
be found for that first, all-important flight to the Moon--the
pioneer manned rocket that would give either the East or the West
control over the Earth.
Yet when the race started, Adam Crag found that he had a saboteur
among his crew ... a traitor! Such a man could give the Reds
possession of Luna, and thereby dominate the world it circled.
Any one of the other three could be the hidden enemy, and if he
didn't discover the agent soon--even while they were roaring on
rocket jets through outer space--then Adam Crag, his expedition, and
his country would be destroyed!
PROLOGUE
One of the rockets was silver; three were ashen gray. Each nested in a
different spot on the great Western Desert. All were long, tapered,
sisters except for color. In a way they represented the first, and last,
of an era, with exotic propellants, a high mass ratio and three-stage
design. Yet they were not quite alike. One of the sisters had within her
the artifacts the human kind needed for life--a space cabin high in the
nose. The remaining sisters were drones, beasts of burden, but beasts
which carried scant payloads considering their bulk.
One thing they had in common--destination. They rested on their launch
pads, with scaffolds almost cleared, heads high and proud. Soon they
would flash skyward, one by one, seeking a relatively small haven on a
strange bleak world. The world was the moon; the bleak place was called
Arzachel, a crater--stark, alien, with tall cliffs brooding over an ashy
plain.
Out on the West Coast a successor to the sisters was shaping up--a great
ship of a new age, with nuclear drive and a single stage. But the
sisters could not wait for their successor. Time was running out.
CHAPTER I
The room was like a prison--at least to Adam Crag. It was a square with
a narrow bunk, a battered desk, two straight-back chairs and little
else. Its one small window overlooked the myriad quonsets and buildings
of Burning Sands Base from the second floor of a nearly empty dormitory.
There was a sentry at the front of the building, another at the rear.
Silent alert men who never spoke to Crag--seldom acknowledged his
movements to and from the building--yet never let a stranger approach
the weathered dorm without sharp challenge. Night and day they were
there. From his window he could see the distant launch site and, by
night, the batteries of floodlights illumining the metal monster on the
pad. But now he wasn't thinking of the rocket. He was fretting; fuming
because of a call from Colonel Michael Gotch.
"Don't stir from the room," Gotch had crisply ordered on the phone. He
had hung up without explanation. That had been two hours before.
Crag had finished dressing--he had a date--idly wondering what was in
the Colonel's mind. The fretting had only set in when, after more than
an hour, Gotch had failed to show. Greg's liberty had been restricted to
one night a month. One measly night, he thought. Now he was wasting it,
tossing away the precious hours. Waiting. Waiting for what?
"I'm a slave," he told himself viciously; "slave to a damned bird
colonel." His date wouldn't wait--wasn't the waiting kind. But he
couldn't leave.
He stopped pacing long enough to look at himself in the cracked mirror
above his desk. The face that stared back was lean, hard, unlined--skin
that told of wind and sun, not brown nor bronze but more of a mahogany
red. Just now the face was frowning. The eyes were wide-spaced, hazel,
the nose arrogant and hawkish. A thin white scar ran over one cheek
ending.
His mind registered movement behind him. He swiveled around, flexing his
body, balanced on his toes, then relaxed, slightly mortified.
Gotch--Colonel Michael Gotch--stood just inside the door eyeing him
tolerantly. A flush crept over Crag's face. Damn Gotch and his velvet
feet, he thought. But he kept the thought concealed.
The expression on Gotch's face was replaced by a wooden mask. He studied
the lean man by the mirror for a moment, then flipped his cap on the bed
and sat down without switching his eyes.
He said succinctly. "You're it."
"I've got it?" Crag gave an audible sigh of relief. Gotch nodded without
speaking.
"What about Temple?"
"Killed last night--flattened by a truck that came over the center-line.
On an almost deserted highway just outside the base," Gotch added. He
spoke casually but his eyes were not casual. They were unfathomable
black pools. Opaque and hard. Crag wrinkled his brow inquiringly.
"Accident?"
"You know better than that. The truck was hot, a semi with bum plates,
and no driver when the cops got there." His voice turned harsh. "No ...
it was no accident."
"I'm sorry," Crag said quietly. He hadn't known Temple personally. He
had been just a name--a whispered name. One of three names, to be exact:
Romer, Temple, Crag. Each had been hand-picked as possible pilots of the
Aztec, a modified missile being rushed to completion in a last ditch
effort to beat the Eastern World in the race for the moon. They had been
separately indoctrinated, tested, trained; each had virtually lived in
one of the scale-size simulators of the Aztec's space cabin, and had
been rigorously schooled for the operation secretly referred to as "Step
One." But they had been kept carefully apart. There had been a time when
no one--unless it were the grim-faced Gotch--knew which of the three was
first choice.
Romer had died first--killed as a bystander in a brawl. So the police
said. Crag had suspected differently. Now Temple. The choice, after all,
had not been the swarthy Colonel's to make. Somehow the knowledge
pleased him. Gotch interrupted his thoughts.
"Things are happening. The chips are down. Time has run out, Adam."
While he clipped the words out he weighed Crag, as if seeking some clue
to his thoughts. His face said that everything now depended upon the
lean man with the hairline scar across his cheek. His eyes momentarily
wondered if the lean man could perform what man never before had done.
But his lips didn't voice the doubt. After a moment he said:
"We know the East is behind us in developing an atomic spaceship. Quite
a bit behind. We picked up a lot from some of our atomic sub work--that
and our big missiles. But maybe the knowledge made us lax." He added
stridently:
"Now ... they're ready to launch."
"Now?"
"Now!"
"I didn't think they were that close."
"Intelligence tells us they've modified a couple of T-3's--the big ICBM
model. We just got a line on it ... almost too late." Gotch smiled
bleakly. "So we've jumped our schedule, at great risk. It's your baby,"
he added.
Crag said simply; "I'm glad of the chance."
"You should be. You've hung around long enough," Gotch said dryly. His
eyes probed Crag. "I only hope you've learned enough ... are ready."
"Plenty ready," snapped Crag.
"I hope so."
Gotch got to his feet, a square fiftyish man with cropped iron-gray
hair, thick shoulders and weather-roughened skin. Clearly he wasn't a
desk colonel.
"You've got a job, Adam." His voice was unexpectedly soft but he
continued to weigh Crag for a long moment before he picked up his cap
and turned toward the door.
"Wait," he said. He paused, listening for a moment before he opened it,
then slipped quietly into the hall, closing the door carefully behind
him.
He's like a cat, Crag thought for the thousandth time, watching the
closed door. He was a man who seemed forever listening; a heavy hulking
man who walked on velvet feet; a man with opaque eyes who saw everything
and told nothing. Gotch would return.
Despite the fact the grizzled Colonel had been his mentor for over a
year he felt he hardly knew the man. He was high up in the missile
program--missile security, Crag had supposed--yet he seemed to hold
power far greater than that of a security officer. He seemed, in fact,
to have full charge of the Aztec project--Step One--even though Dr.
Kenneth Walmsbelt was its official director. The difference was, the
nation knew Walmsbelt. He talked with congressmen, pleaded for money,
carried his program to the newspapers and was a familiar figure on the
country's TV screens. He was the leading exponent of the
space-can't-wait philosophy. But few people knew Gotch; and fewer yet
his connections. He was capable, competent, and to Crag's way of
thinking, a tough monkey, which pretty well summarized his knowledge of
the man.
He felt the elation welling inside him, growing until it was almost a
painful pleasure. It had been born of months and months of hope, over a
year during which he had scarcely dared hope. Now, because a man had
died....
He sat looking at the ceiling, thinking, trying to still the inner
tumult. Only outwardly was he calm. He heard footsteps returning. Gotch
opened the door and entered, followed by a second man. Crag started
involuntarily, half-rising from his chair.
He was looking at himself!
"Crag, meet Adam Crag." The Colonel's voice and face were
expressionless. Crag extended his hand, feeling a little silly.
"Glad to know you."
The newcomer acknowledged the introduction with a grin--the same kind of
lopsided grin the real Crag wore. More startling was the selfsame
hairline scar traversing his cheek; the same touch of cockiness in the
set of his face.
Gotch said, "I just wanted you to get a good look at yourself. Crag
here"--he motioned his hand toward the newcomer--"is your official
double. What were you planning for tonight, your last night on earth?"
"I have a date with Ann. Or had," he added sourly. He twisted his head
toward Gotch as the Colonel's words sunk home. "Last night?"
Gotch disregarded the question. "For what?"
"Supper and dancing at the Blue Door."
"Then?"
"Take her home, if it's any of your damned business," snapped Crag. "I
wasn't planning on staying, if that's what you mean."
"I know ... I know, we have you on a chart," Gotch said amiably. "We
know every move you've made since you wet your first diapers. Like that
curvy little brunette secretary out in San Diego, or that blonde night
club warbler you were rushing in Las Vegas." Crag flushed. The Colonel
eyed him tolerantly.
"And plenty more," he added. He glanced at Crag's double. "I'm sure your
twin will be happy to fill in for you tonight."
"Like hell he will," gritted Crag. The room was quiet for a moment.
"As I said, he'll fill in for you."
Crag grinned crookedly. "Ann won't go for it. She's used to the real
article."
"We're not giving her a chance to snafu the works," Gotch said grimly.
"She's in protective custody. We have a double for her, too."
"Mind explaining?"
"Not a bit. Let's face the facts and admit both Romer and Temple were
murdered. That leaves only you. The enemy isn't about to let us get the
Aztec into space. You're the only pilot left who's been trained for the
big jump--the only man with the specialized know-how. That's why you're
on someone's list. Perhaps, even, someone here at the Base ... or on the
highway ... or in town. I don't know when or how but I do know this:
You're a marked monkey."
Gotch added flatly: "I don't propose to let you get murdered."
"How about him?" Crag nodded toward his double. The man smiled faintly.
"That's what he's paid for," Gotch said unfeelingly. His lips curled
sardonically. "All the heroes aren't in space."
Crag flushed. Gotch had a way of making him uncomfortable as no other
man ever had. The gentle needle. But it was true. The Aztec was his
baby. Gotch's role was to see that he lived long enough to get it into
space. The rest was up to him. Something about the situation struck him
as humorous. He looked at his double with a wry grin.
"Home and to bed early," he cautioned. "Don't forget you've got my
reputation to uphold."
"Go to hell," his double said amiably.
"Okay, let's get down to business," Gotch growled. "I've got a little to
say."
* * * * *
Long after they left Crag stood at the small window, looking out over
the desert. Somewhere out there was the Aztec, a silver arrow crouched
in its cradle, its nose pointed toward the stars. He drew the picture in
his mind. She stood on her tail fins; a six-story-tall needle braced by
metal catwalks and guard rails; a cousin twice-removed to the great
nuclear weapons which guarded Fortress America. He had seen her at
night, under the batteries of floor lights, agleam with a milky
radiance; a virgin looking skyward, which, in fact, she was. Midway
along her length her diameter tapered abruptly, tapered again beyond the
three-quarters point. Her nose looked slender compared with her body,
yet it contained a space cabin with all the panoply needed to sustain
life beyond the atmosphere.
His thoughts were reverent, if not loving. Save for occasional too-brief
intervals with Ann, the ship had dominated his life for over a year. He
knew her more intimately, he thought, than a long-married man knows his
wife.
He had never ceased to marvel at the Aztec's complexity. Everything
about the rocket spoke of the future. She was clearly designed to
perform in a time not yet come, at a place not yet known. She would fly,
watching the stars, continuously measuring the angle between them,
computing her way through the abyss of space. Like a woman she would
understand the deep currents within her, the introspective sensing of
every force which had an effect upon her life. She would measure
gravitation, acceleration and angular velocity with infinite precision.
She would count these as units of time, perform complex mathematical
equations, translate them into course data, and find her way unerringly
across the purple-black night which separated her from her assignation
with destiny. She would move with the certainty of a woman fleeing to
her lover. Yes, he thought, he would put his life in the lady's hands.
He would ride with her on swift wings. But he would be her master.
* * * * *
His mood changed. He turned from the window thinking it was a hell of a
way to spend his last night. Last night on earth, he corrected wryly. He
couldn't leave the room, couldn't budge, didn't know where Ann was. No
telephone. He went to bed wondering how he'd ever let himself get
snookered into the deal. Here he was, young, with a zest for life and a
stacked-up gal on the string. And what was he doing about it? Going to
the moon, that's what. Going to some damned hell-hole called Arzachel,
all because a smooth bird colonel had pitched him a few soft words.
Sucker!
His lips twisted in a crooked grin. Gotch had seduced him by describing
his mission as an "out-of-this-world opportunity." Those had been
Gotch's words. Well, that was Arzachel. And pretty quick it would be
Adam Crag. Out-of-this-world Crag. Just now the thought wasn't so
appealing.
* * * * *
Sleep didn't come easy. At Gotch's orders he had turned in early, at the
unheard hour of seven. Getting to sleep was another matter. It's
strange, he thought, he didn't have any of the feelings Doc Weldon, the
psychiatrist, had warned him of. He wasn't nervous, wasn't afraid. Yet
before another sun had set he'd be driving the Aztec up from earth, into
the loneliness of space, to a bleak crater named Arzachel. He would face
the dangers of intense cosmic radiation, chance meteor swarms, and human
errors in calculation which could spell disaster. It would be the first
step in the world race for control of the Solar System--a crucial race
with the small nations of the world watching for the winner. Watching
and waiting to see which way to lean.
He was already cut off from mankind, imprisoned in a small room with
the momentous zero hour drawing steadily nearer. Strange, he thought,
there had been a time when his career had seemed ended, washed up,
finished, the magic of the stratosphere behind him for good. Sure, he'd
resigned from the Air Force at his own free will, even if his C. O. had
made the pointed suggestion. Because he hadn't blindly followed orders.
Because he'd believed in making his own decisions when the chips were
down. "Lack of _esprit de corps_," his C. O. had termed it.
He'd been surprised that night--it was over a year ago now--that Colonel
Gotch had contacted him. (Just when he was wondering where he might get
a job. He hadn't liked the prosaic prospects of pushing passengers
around the country in some jet job.) Sure, he'd jumped at the offer. But
the question had never left his mind. _Why had Gotch selected him?_ The
Aztec, a silver needle plunging through space followed by her drones,
all in his tender care. He was planning the step-by-step procedure of
take-off when sleep came.