First on the Moon, Jeff Sutton [most read books in the world of all time TXT] 📗

times but none of the jolts was as severe as the first. He waited, aware of the stillness, a silence so deep it was like a great thunder. The big stuff must all be down. The thought bolstered his courage. The idea of being squashed like a bug was not appealing. He waited, wondering if Richter had survived. He thought of Larkwell and involuntarily clenched his fists. Larkwell, or Igor Malin—if he lived—would be his first order of business. He remembered Nagel and Prochaska and began planning how he would kill the man in Bandit. He waited a while longer. The absolute silence grated his ears. Now, he thought.

He slipped on a fresh oxygen cylinder, and hooked a spare into his belt, then pawed through the supplies until he found fresh batteries for his torch. Finally he got one of the automatic rifles from Red Dog's arsenal. After that he climbed up to the plain. He called Richter's name several times over the phones, with little hope of answer. He looked at the sky, then swept his torch over the moonscape. A feeling of solitude assailed him. For the first time since leaving earth he was totally alone.

The last time he had experienced such a feeling was when he'd pushed an experimental rocket ship almost to the edge of space. He shook off the feeling and debated what to do. Richter undoubtedly was dead. Had Larkwell—or was it Malin?—survived the rock storm? Spurred to action, he turned toward Bandit. Nothing seemed changed, he thought, or almost nothing. Here and there the smooth ash was pitted. Once he came to a jagged rock which lay almost astride his path. He was sure it hadn't been there before.

He moved more cautiously as he drew near Bandit, remembering that the occupant of the rocket was armed. He climbed a familiar knoll, searching the plain ahead with his torch. He stopped, puzzled, flashing the light to check his bearings. Satisfied he was on the right knoll he played the light ahead again while moving down to the plain. He walked slowly forward. Once he dropped to the ground to see if he could discern the bulk of Bandit against the stars. Finally he walked faster, sweeping the torch over the plain in wide arcs. Suddenly he stopped. Gone! Bandit was gone! It couldn't be. It might be demolished, smashed flat, but it couldn't disappear. He wondered if he were having hallucinations. No, he was sane ... completely sane. He began calling Richter's name. The silence mocked him. Finally he turned back toward Red Dog.

Crag slept. He slept with the airlock closed and the cabin flooded with oxygen. He slept the sleep of the dead, a luxurious sleep without thought or dream. When he awakened, he ate and donned the pressure suit, thinking he would have to get more oxygen from the drone. He opened the hatch and scrambled out. The plain was light. The sun was an intolerable circle hanging at the very edge of the horizon. He blinked his eyes to get them used to the glare.

He studied the plain for a long time, then hefted the rifle and started toward Bandit before he remembered there was no Bandit. No Bandit? When he reached the top of the knoll, he knew he was right. Bandit unaccountably was gone. He searched the area in wide circles. The question grew in his mind. He found several twisted pieces of metal—a jagged piece of engine. Abruptly he found Richter.

He was dead. His suit hung limp, airless against his body. He stared at the object next to Richter. It was a moment before he recognized it as the rocket launcher.

"He forgot two things, Commander...."

Now he understood Richter's words. Now he knew the motive that had driven him onto the plain in the face of the rock storm. Richter had used the launcher to destroy Bandit, to destroy the murderer of Prochaska and Nagel. He marveled that Richter could have carried the heavy weapon. Once, before, he had watched two men struggle under its weight Richter must have mustered every ounce of his strength.

He looked at the fallen form for a long time. Richter had crossed his frontier. At last he turned and started toward Red Dog. Adam Crag, the Man in the Moon. Now he was really the Man in the Moon. The only Man. Colonel Crag, Commanding Officer, Pickering Field. General Crag of the First Moon expeditionary Force. Adam Crag, Emperor of Luna. He laughed—a mirthless laugh. Damned if he couldn't be anything he wanted to be—on the Moon.

The sun climbed above the rim of Arzachel transforming the vast depressed interior of the crater into a caldron of heat and glare. In the morning of the lunar day the rock structures rising from the plain cast lengthy black shadows over the ashy floor—a mosaic in black and white. Crag kept busy. He stripped the drones of their scant amount of usable supplies—mainly oxygen cylinders from Baker—and set up a new communication post in Red Dog. In the first hours of the new morning Gotch named the saboteur. Crag listened, wearily. Just then he wasn't interested in the fact that an alert intelligence agent had doubted that a man of 5' 5" could have been a star basketball player, as the Superintendent of the Maple Hill Orphanage had said. He expressed his feelings by shutting off the communicator in the middle of the Colonel's explanation.

The sun climbed, slowly, until it hung overhead, ending a morning which had lasted seven earth days in length. At midday the shadows had all but vanished. He finished marking the last of three crosses and stepped back to survey his work. He read the names at the head of the mounds: Max Prochaska, Gordon Nagel, Otto Richter. Each was followed by a date. Out on the plain were other graves, those of the crewmen of Bandit and Red Dog. He had marked each mound with a small pile of stones. Later it struck him that someday there might be peace. Someday, someone might want to look at one of those piles of stone. He returned and added a notation to each.

The sun moved imperceptibly across the sky. It seemed to hover above the horizon for a long while before slipping beyond the rim. Night seemed eternal. Crag worked and slept and waited. He measured his oxygen, rationed his food, and planned. He was tough. He'd survive. If only to read Gotch off, he promised himself savagely.

The sun came up again. In time it set. Rose and set.

Crag waited.

He watched the silvery ship let down. It backed down slowly, gracefully, coming to rest on the ashy plain with scarcely a jar. Somehow he didn't feel jubilant. He waited, gravely, watching the figures that came from the ship. He wasn't surprised that the first one was Colonel Michael Gotch.

Later they gathered in the small crew room of the Astronaut, the name of the first atom-powered spaceship. They waited solemnly—Gotch and Crag, the pilot, and two crewmen—waiting for the thin man to speak. Just now he was sitting at the small pulldown chow table peering at some papers, records of the moon expedition. Finally he looked up.

"It seems to me that your Nation's claim to the Moon is justified," he said. The words were fateful. The thin man's name was Fredrick Gunter. He was also Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Jeff Sutton, although experienced in journalistic and technical writings, has only recently turned his hand to novels with the result that First on the Moon is also his first novel. A native Californian, and a Marine veteran, he is presently employed as a research engineer for Convair-San Diego, specializing appropriately enough for this novel in problems of high altitude survival. He says of himself:

"I have long been a science-fiction reader (a common ailment among scientists and engineers). On the personal side, a number of factors have coalesced to pin me to the typewriter. I am living in—and working in—a world of missiles, rockets, and far-reaching dreams. In many areas the border between science-fiction and science suddenly has become a lace curtain. It is a world I have some acquaintance with—and fits very nicely into my desire to write."

SCIENCE-FICTION AT ITS BEST Luna Was The Goal, Earth The Prize

It was a top secret, and yet the enemy knew. They knew that the Americans were about to send a manned rocket to the moon and thereby claim it for Old Glory. They knew also that whoever held the moon would command the Earth ... and they were determined to stop us at all costs!

When assassination and sabotage failed to stop the take-off, they'd have to use even more drastic measures. There might be an H-bomb loaded rocket missile, there could be a Red spaceship with a suicide crew, and there was always the possibility of their placing a spy aboard the U.S. rocket.

FIRST ON THE MOON is a thrilling adventure of the very near future. Written with up-to-the-minute accuracy by a professional aviation research engineer, it is a top-notch novel that is science-fiction only by the thinnest margin!

AN ACE BOOK End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of First on the Moon, by Jeff Sutton