"Gordon Nagel?" The professor turned the name over in his mind. "Yes, I
believe I recall him. Let's see, that would have been about...." He
paused, looking thoughtfully into space.
The agent said, "Graduated in '55. One of your honor students."
"Ah, yes, how could I have forgotten?" The Professor folded his hands
across his plump stomach and settled back in his chair.
"I seem to recall him as sort of an intense, nervous type," he said at
last. "Sort of withdrawn but, as you mentioned, quite brilliant. Now
that I think of it--"
He abruptly stopped speaking and looked at the agent with a startled
face.
"You mean the man in the moon?" he blurted.
"Yes, that's the one."
"Ah, no wonder the name sounded so familiar. But, of course, we have so
many famous alumni. Ruthill University prides itself--"
"Of course," the agent cut in.
The professor gave him a hurt look before he began talking again. He
rambled at length. Every word he uttered was taped on the agent's pocket
recorder.
* * * * *
"Gordon Nagel, the young man on the moon flight? Why certainly I recall
young Nagel," the high school principal said. "A fine student ... one of
the best." He looked archly at the agent down a long thin nose.
"Braxton High School is extremely proud of Gordon Nagel. Extremely
proud. If I say so myself he has set a mark for other young men to
strive for."
"Of course," the agent agreed.
"This is a case which well vindicates the stress we've put on the
physical and life sciences," the principal continued. "It is the
objective of Braxton High School to give every qualified student the
groundwork he needs for later academic success. That is, students with
sufficiently high I.Q.," he added.
"Certainly, but about Gordon Nagel...?"
"Yes, of course." The principal began to speak again. The agent relaxed,
listening. He didn't give a damn about the moon but he was extremely
interested in the thirty some years of Nagel's life preceding that trip.
Very much so. He left the school thinking that Nagel owed quite a lot to
Braxton High. At least the principal had inferred as much.
* * * * *
"Yes, I did go with Gordon for a while," Mrs. LeRoy Farwell said. "But
of course it was never serious. Just an occasional school dance or
something. He might be famous but, well, frankly he wasn't my type. He
was an awful drip." Her eyes brushed the agent's face meaningfully.
"I like 'em live, if you know what I mean."
"Certainly, Mrs. Farwell," the agent said gravely. "But about Nagel...?"
There were many people representing three decades of contact with Gordon
Nagel. Some of them recalled him only fleetingly. Others rambled at
length. Odd little entries came to life to fit into the dossier.
Photographs and records were exhumed. Gordon Nagel ... Gordon Nagel....
The file on Gordon Nagel grew.
* * * * *
Colonel Michael Gotch didn't like the idea of an addition to the Aztec
crew. Didn't like it at all. He informed Crag that the rescue had been
entirely unnecessary. Unrealistic, was the word he had used. He was
extremely interested in the fact that Bandit housed an arsenal. He
suggested, in view of Drone Able's loss, they shouldn't overlook
Bandit's supplies.
"Especially as you have another mouth to feed," he said blandly.
Crag agreed. He didn't say so but he had already planned just such a
move. The Colonel immediately launched into a barrage of questions
concerning the crashed rocket. He seemed grieved when Crag couldn't
supply answers down to the last detail.
"Look," Crag finally exploded, "give us time ... time. We just got here.
Remember?"
"Yes ... yes, I know. But the information is vital," Gotch said firmly.
"I would appreciate it if you would try...."
Crag cursed and snapped the communicator off.
"What's wrong? The bird colonel heckling you?"
"Hounding is the word," Crag corrected. He fixed the Chief with a
baleful eye and uttered an epithet with regard to the Colonel's
ancestry. Prochaska chuckled.
Larkwell quickly demonstrated that he knew the Aztec inside and out far
better than did any of the others. Aside from several large cables
supplied expressly for the purpose of lowering the rocket, he obtained
the rest of the equipment needed from the ship.
Under his direction two winches were set up about thirty yards from the
ship and a cable run to each to form a V-line. A second line ran from
each winch to a nearby shallow gully. Heavy weights--now useless parts
of the ship's engines--were fastened to these and buried. The lines were
intended to anchor the winches during the critical period of lowering
the rocket. Finally Larkwell ran a guide line from the Aztec's nose to a
third winch. This one was powered by an electric motor which was powered
by the ship's batteries.
While Larkwell and Nagel prepared to lower the rocket Crag smoothed off
an area of the plain's surface and marked off a twenty-foot square. He
finished and looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. Richter's eyes
were filled with interest.
"Using it to chart the frequency of meteorite falls," Crag explained.
"We'd like to get an idea of the hazard."
"Plenty," Richter said succinctly. He started to add more and stopped.
Crag felt the urge to pump him but refrained. The least he became
involved the better, he thought. It didn't escape him that the German
seemed to have recovered to a remarkable extent. Well, that was
something else to remember. Richter injured was one thing. But Richter
recovered ...
He snapped the thought off and turned toward the base of the rocket,
indicating that the German should follow. Larkwell was testing the
winches and checking the cables when they arrived.
"About ready," he told Crag.
"Then let her go."
The construction boss nodded and barked a command to Prochaska and
Nagel, who were manning the restraining winches. When they acknowledged
they were ready he strode to the power winch.
"Okay." His voice was a terse crack in the interphones. The Aztec
shuddered on its base, teetering, then its nose began to cant downward.
It moved slowly in an arc across the sky.
"Take up," Larkwell barked into the mike. The guide lines tautened.
"Okay."
This time Prochaska and Nagel fed line through the winches more slowly.
The nose of the rocket had passed through sixty degrees of arc when its
tail began to inch backward, biting into the plain.
"Hold up!" Larkwell circled the rocket and approached the tailfins from
one side. He looked up at the body of the ship, then back at the base.
Satisfied it would hold he ordered the winches started. The nose moved
slowly toward the ground, swaying slightly from side to side. In another
moment it lay on its belly on the plain.
"Now the real work begins," Larkwell told Crag. "We gotta clean
everything out of that stovepipe and get the airlock rigged." His voice
was complaining but his face indicated the importance he attached to the
job.
"How long do you figure it'll take?"
Larkwell rubbed his faceplate thoughtfully. "About two days, with some
catnaps and some help."
"Good." Crag looked thoughtfully at Richter. "Any reason you can't
help?" he asked sharply.
"None at all," Richter answered solemnly.
While Larkwell and Nagel labored in the tail section, Crag and
Prochaska rearranged the space cabin. The chemical commode was placed in
one corner and a nylon curtain rigged around it--their one concession to
civilization. Crag was conscious of Richter's eyes following
them--weighing, analyzing, speculating. He caught himself swiveling
around at odd times to check on him, but Richter seemed unconcerned.
Electric power from the batteries was limited. For the most part they
would be living on space rations--food concentrates supplemented with
vitamin pills--and a square of chocolate daily per man. Later, when the
airlock was installed in the area now occupied by the afterburners and
machinery, they would be able to appreciably extend their living
quarters. Until then, Crag thought wryly, they would live like
sardines--with an enemy in their midst. An enemy and a saboteur, he
mentally corrected. Aside from that there was the constant danger from
meteorite falls. He shook his head despairingly. Life on the moon wasn't
all it could be. Not by a damn sight.
Nagel was becoming perturbed over their oxygen consumption. He had set
up the small tanks containing algae in a nutrient solution, tending them
like a mother hen. In time, if the cultivation were successful, the
small algae farm would convert the carbon dioxide from their respiration
into oxygen. At the present time the carbon dioxide was being absorbed
by chemical means. As things stood, it was necessary for the entire crew
to don spacesuits every time one of them left the cabin. Each time the
cabin air was lost in the vacuum of the moon. Crag pointed out there was
no alternative until the airlock was completed, a fact which didn't keep
Nagel from complaining.
* * * * *
Otto Richter recovered fast. Before another day had passed--the Aztec
continued to operate by earth clock--he seemed to have completely
recovered. It was evident that concussion and shock had been the extent
of his injuries. Crag didn't know whether to be sorry or glad, he
didn't, in fact, know what to do with the man. He gave firm orders that
Richter was never to be left alone--not for a moment.
He told him: "You will not be allowed in the area of any of the
electronic equipment. First time you do ..." He looked meaningfully at
him.
"I understand," the German said. Thereafter, except for occasional trips
to the commode, or to help with work, he kept to the corner of the space
cabin allotted him.
Larkwell came up for the evening meal wearing a grim look. He extended
his hand toward Crag, holding a jagged chunk of rock nearly the size of
a baseball.
Crag took the hunk and hefted it thoughtfully. "Meteorite?" The others
clustered around.
"Yeah. I saw a hole in that cleared off section and reached down. There
she was, big as life."
"If that had hit this pipe we'd be dead ducks," Prochaska observed.
"But it didn't hit," Crag corrected, trying to allay any gathering
nervousness. "It just means that we're going to have to get going on the
rill airlock as soon as possible."
"How will loss of Able affect that?" Nagel asked curiously.
"Only in the matter of size," Crag explained. "The possible loss of a
drone was taken into account. The plastiblocks are constructed to make
any size shelter possible. We'll start immediately when Baker lands." He
looked thoughtfully at the men. "Let's not borrow any trouble."
"Yeah, there's plenty without borrowing any more," Prochaska agreed. He
smiled cheerfully. "I vote we all stop worrying and eat."
Another complication arose. Drone Baker would be in orbit the following
morning. Prochaska had to be prepared to bring it down. He was busy
moving his equipment into one compact corner opposite the commode. He
rigged a curtain around it, partly for privacy but mainly to mark off a
definite area prohibited to Richter.
The communicator was becoming another problem that harried Crag. A
government geologist wanted a complete description of Arzachel's rock
structure. A space medicine doctor had a lot of questions about the
working of the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange system. Someone else--Crag
was never quite sure who--wanted an exact description of how the Aztec
had handled during letdown. In the end he got on the communicator and
curtly asked for Gotch.
"Keep these people off our backs until we land Drone Baker," he told
him. "It's not headquarters for some damned quiz program."
"You're big news," Gotch placated. "What you tell us will help with
future rockets."
"Like a mineral description of the terrain?"
"Even that. But cheer up, Commander. The worst is yet to come." He broke
off before Crag could snap a reply. Prochaska grinned at his
discomfiture.
"That's what comes of being famous," he said. "We're wheels."
"A wheel on the moon." Crag looked questioningly at him. "Is that good?"
"Damned if I know. I haven't been here long enough."
* * * * *
Crag was surprised to see how rapidly work in the tail section was
progressing. Larkwell had loosened the giant engines and fuel tanks and
pulled them from the ship with power from one of the rocket's servo
motors. They lay on the dusty floor of the plain, incongruous in their
new setting. He thought it a harbinger of things to come. A rocket
garage on the floor of barren Arzachel. Four men attempting to build an
empire from the hull of a space ship. In time it would be replaced by an
airlock in a rill ... a military base ... a domed city. Pickering Field
would become a transportation center, perhaps the hub of the Solar
System's transportation empire. First single freighters, then ore
trains, would travel the highways of space between earth mother and her
long separated child. He sighed. The ore trains were a long way in the
future.
Larkwell crawled out from the cavern he had hollowed in the hull and
stretched. "Time for chow," he grunted. His voice over the interphones
sounded tired. Nagel followed him looking morose. He didn't acknowledge
Crag's presence.
At evening by earth clock they ate their scant fare. They were unusually
silent. The Chief seemed weary from his long vigil on the scope.
Larkwell's face was sweaty, smudged with grease. He ate quickly, with
the air of a man preoccupied with weighty problems. Nagel was clearly
bushed. Larkwell's fast pace had been too much for him. He wore a cross,
irritable expression and avoided all conversation. Richter sat alone,
seemingly unconcerned that he was a virtual prisoner, confined to one
small corner of the cabin barely large enough to provide sleeping space.
Crag had no feelings where he was concerned, neither resentment nor
sympathy. The German was just a happenstance, a castaway in the war for
Arzachel. Or, more probable, he thought, the war for the moon.
After chow the men took turns shaving with the single razor. It had been
supplied only because of the need to keep the oxygen ports in the
helmets free and to keep the lip mikes clear.
"Pure luxury," Prochaska said when his turn came. "Nothing's too good
for the spaceman."
"Amen," Crag agreed. "I hope the next crew is going to get a bar of
soap."
"For their sake I hope they pick something better than this crummy
planet," Larkwell grunted.
* * * * *
Drone Baker had entered the moon's gravisphere at the precise time
spelled out by the earth computers. Its speed had dropped to a mere two
hundred miles per hour. It began to accelerate, pulled by the moon,
moving in a vast trajectory calculated to put it into a closing orbit
around the barren satellite. Prochaska picked it up and followed it on
the scope. Telemeter control from Alpine fired the first braking
rockets. The blast countered the moon's pull. Drone Baker was still a
speck on the scope--a solitary traveler rushing toward them through the
void.
"Seems incredible it took us that long," Crag mused, studying the
instrument panel. He reached over and activated the analog. Back on
earth saucers with faces lifted to the skies were tracking the drone's
flight. Their information was channeled into computer batteries,
integrated, analyzed, and sent back into space. The wave train ended in
a gridded scope--the analog Crag was viewing.
"Seemed a damned lot shorter when we were up there," he speculated
aloud.
"That's one experience that really telescopes time," the Chief agreed.
"I'd hate to have to sweat it out again."
"When do we take over?"
Prochaska glanced at the master chrono. "Not till 0810, give or take a
few minutes. It depends on the final computations from Alpine."
"Better catch some sleep," Crag suggested. "It's going to be touchy once
we get hold of it."
"We'll be damn lucky if we get it down in Arzachel."
"We'd better." Crag grinned. "Muff this and we might as well take out
lunar citizenship."
"No thanks. Not interested."
"What's the matter, Max, no pioneer spirit?"
"Go to hell," Prochaska answered amiably.
"Now, Mr. Prochaska, that's no way to speak to your commanding officer,"
Crag reproved with mock severity.
"Okay. Go to hell, Sir," he joked.
Richter was a problem. Someone had to be awake at all times. Crag
decided to break the crew into watches, and laid out a tentative
schedule. He would take the first watch, Larkwell would relieve him at
midnight, and Nagel would take over at 0300. That way Prochaska would
get a full night's sleep. He would need steady nerves come morning. He
outlined the schedule to the crew. Neither Larkwell nor Nagel appeared
enthusiastic over the prospect of initiating a watch regime, but neither
protested openly.
When the others were asleep, Crag cut off the light to preserve battery
power. He studied the lunar landscape out the port, thinking it must be
the bleakest spot in the universe. He twisted his head and looked
starward. The sky was a grab bag of suns. Off to one side giant Orion
looked across the gulf of space at Taurus and the Pleiades, the seven
daughters of Atlas.