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

toward the silver drone.

"Warhead!" Crag roared the word with cold anger.

Prochaska cursed softly.

One second Drone Able was there, riding serenely through space. The next it disintegrated, blasted apart by internal explosions. Seconds later only fragments of the drone were visible.

Prochaska stared at Crag, his face bleak. Crag's brain reeled. He mentally examined what had happened, culling his thoughts until one cold fact remained.

"Mistaken identity," he said softly. "They thought it was the Aztec."

"Now what?"

"Now we hope they haven't any more warheads." Crag mulled the possibility. "Considering weight factors, I'd guess they haven't. Besides, there's no profit in wasting a warhead on a drone."

"We hope." Prochaska studied Bandit through the port, and licked his lips nervously. "Think we ought to contact Alpine?"

Crag weighed the question. Despite the tight beam, any communication could be a dead giveaway. On the other hand, Bandit either had the capacity to destroy them or it didn't. If it did, well, there wasn't much they could do about it. He reached a decision and nodded to Prochaska, then began coding his thoughts.

He had trouble getting through on the communicator. Finally he got a weak return signal, then sent a brief report. Alpine acknowledged and cut off the air.

"What now?" Prochaska asked, when Crag had finished.

He shrugged and turned to the side port without answering. Bandit loomed large, a long thick rocket with an oddly blunted nose. A monster that was as deadly as it looked.

"Big," he surmised. "Much bigger than this chunk of hardware."

"Yeah, a regular battleship," Prochaska assented. He grinned crookedly. "In more ways than one."

Crag sensed movement at his shoulder and turned his head. Nagel was studying the radarscope over his shoulder. Surprise lit his narrow face.

"The drone?"

"Destroyed," Crag said bruskly. "Bandit had a warhead."

Nagel looked startled, then retreated to his seat without a word. Crag returned his attention to the enemy rocket.

"What do you think?" he asked Prochaska.

His answer was solemn. "It spells trouble."

CHAPTER 8

At a precise point in space spelled out by the Alpine computers Crag applied the first braking rockets. He realized that the act had been an immediate tip-off to the occupants of the other rocket. No matter, he thought. Sooner or later they had to discover it was the drone they had destroyed. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, their headlong flight was slowed. He nursed the rockets with care. There was no fuel to spare, no energy to waste, no room for error. Everything had been worked out long beforehand; he was merely the agent of execution.

The sensation of weight gradually increased. He ordered Larkwell and Nagel into their seats in strapdown position. He and Prochaska shortly followed, but he left his shoulder harnessing loose to give his arms the vital freedom he needed for the intricate maneuvers ahead.

The moon rushed toward them at an appalling rate. Its surface was a harsh grille work of black and white, a nightmarish scape of pocks and twisted mountains of rock rimming the flat lunar plains. It was, he thought, the geometry of a maniac. There was no softness, no blend of light and shadow, only terrible cleavages between black and white. Yet there was a beauty that gripped his imagination; the raw, stark beauty of a nature undefiled by life. No eye had ever seen the canopy of the heavens from the bleak surface below; no flower had ever wafted in a lunar breeze.

Prochaska nudged his arm and indicated the scope. Bandit was almost abreast them. Crag nodded understandingly.

"No more warheads."

"Guess we're just loaded with luck," Prochaska agreed wryly.

They watched ... waited ... mindless of time. Crag felt the tension building inside him. Occasionally he glanced at the chronometer, itching for action. The wait seemed interminable. Minutes or hours? He lost track of time.

All at once his hands and mind were busy with the braking rockets, dials, meters. First the moon had been a pallid giant in the sky; next it filled the horizon. The effect was startling. The limb of the moon, seen as a shallow curved horizon, no longer was smooth. It appeared as a rugged saw-toothed arc, somehow reminding him of the Devil's Golf Course in California's Death Valley. It was weird and wonderful, and slightly terrifying.

Prochaska manned the automatic camera to record the orbital and landing phases. He spotted the Crater of Ptolemaeus first, near the center-line of the disc. Crag made a minute correction with the steering rockets. The enemy rocket followed suit. Prochaska gave a short harsh laugh without humor.

"Looks like we're piloting them in. Jeepers, you'd think they could do their own navigation."

"Shows the confidence they have in us," Crag retorted.

They flashed high above Ptolemaeus, a crater ninety miles in diameter rimmed by walls three thousand feet high. The crater fled by below them. South lay Alphons; and farther south, Arzachel, with walls ten thousand feet high rimming its vast depressed interior.

Prochaska observed quietly: "Nice rugged spot. It's going to take some doing."

"Amen."

"I'm beginning to get that what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here feeling."

"I've had it right along," Crag confided.

They caught only a fleeting look at Arzachel before it rushed into the background. Crag touched the braking rockets from time to time, gently, precisely, keeping his eyes moving between the radar altimeter and speed indicator while the Chief fed him the course data.

The back side of the moon was spinning into view—the side of the moon never before seen by human eyes. Prochaska whistled softly. A huge mountain range interlaced with valleys and chasms pushed some thirty thousand feet into the lunar skies. Long streaks of ochre and brown marked its sides, the first color they had seen on the moon. Flat highland plains crested between the peaks were dotted with strange monolithic structures almost geometrical in their distribution.

Prochaska was shooting the scene with the automatic camera. Crag twisted around several times to nod reassuringly to Nagel and Larkwell but each time they were occupied with the side ports, oblivious of his gesture. To his surprise Nagel's face was rapt, almost dreamy, completely absorbed by the stark lands below. Larkwell, too, was quiet with wonder.

The jagged mountains fell away to a great sea, larger even than Mare Imbrium, and like Mare Imbrium, devoid of life. A huge crater rose from its center, towering over twenty thousand feet. Beyond lay more mountains. The land between was a wild tangle of rock, a place of unutterable desolation. Crag was fascinated and depressed at the same time. The Aztec was closing around the moon in a tight spiral.

The alien landscape drew visibly nearer. He switched his attention between the braking rockets and instruments, trying to manage a quick glance at the scope. Prochaska caught his look.

"Bandit's up on us," he confirmed.

Crag uttered a vile epithet and Prochaska grinned. He liked to hear him growl, taking it as a good sign.

Crag glanced worriedly at the radar altimeter and hit the braking rockets harder. The quick deceleration gave the impression of added weight, pushing them hard against their chest harnesses.

He found it difficult to make the precise hand movements required. The Aztec was dropping with frightening rapidity. They crossed more mountains, seas, craters, great chasms. Time had become meaningless—had ceased to exist. The sheer bleakness of the face of the moon gripped his imagination. He saw it as the supreme challenge, the magnitude of which took his breath. He was Cortez scanning the land of the Aztecs. More, for this stark lonely terrain had never felt the stir of life. No benevolent Maker had created this chaos. It was an inferno without fire—a hell of a kind never known on earth. It was the handiwork of a nature on a rampage—a maddened nature whose molding clay had been molten lava.

He stirred the controls, moved them further, holding hard. The braking rockets shook the ship, coming through the bulkheads as a faint roar. The ground came up fast. Still the landscape fled by—fled past for seeming days.

Prochaska announced wonderingly. "We've cleared the back side. You're on the landing run, Skipper."

Crag nodded grimly, thinking it was going to be rough. Each second, each split second had to be considered. There was no margin for error. No second chance. He checked and re-checked his instruments, juggling speed against altitude.

Ninety-mile wide Ptolemaeus was coming around again—fast. He caught a glimpse through the floor port. It was a huge saucer, level at the bottom, rimmed by low cliffs which looked as though they had been carved from obsidian. The floor was split by irregular chasms, punctuated by sharp high pinnacles. It receded and Alphons rushed to meet them. The Aztec was dropping fast. Too fast? Crag looked worriedly at the radar altimeter and hit the braking rockets harder. Alphons passed more slowly. They fled south, a slim needle in the lunar skies.

"Arzachel...." He breathed the name almost reverently.

Prochaska glanced out the side port before hurriedly consulting the instruments. Thirty thousand feet! He glanced worriedly at Crag. The ground passed below them at a fantastic speed. They seemed to be dropping faster. The stark face of the planet hurtled to meet them.

"Fifteen thousand feet," Prochaska half-whispered. Crag nodded. "Twelve thousand ... ten ... eight...." The Chief continued to chant the altitude readings in a strained voice. Up until then the face of the moon had seemed to rush toward the Aztec. All at once it changed. Now it was the Aztec that rushed across the hostile land—rushing and dropping. "Three thousand ... two thousand...." They flashed high above a great cliff which fell away for some ten thousand feet. At its base began the plain of Arzachel.

Out of the corner of his eye Crag saw that Bandit was leading them. But higher ... much higher. Now it was needling into the purple-black—straight up. He gave a quick, automatic instrument check. The braking rockets were blasting hard. He switched one hand to the steering rockets.

Zero minute was coming up. Bandit was ahead, but higher. It could, he thought, be a photo finish. Suddenly he remembered his face plate and snapped it shut, opening the oxygen valve. The suit grew rigid on his body and hampered his arms. He cursed softly and looked sideways at Prochaska. He was having the same difficulty. Crag managed a quick over-the-shoulder glance at Larkwell and Nagel. Everything seemed okay.

He took a deep breath and applied full deceleration with the braking jets and simultaneously began manipulating the steering rockets. The ship vibrated from stem to stern. The forward port moved upward; the face of the moon swished past and disappeared. Bandit was lost to sight. The ship trembled, shuddered and gave a violent wrench. Crag was thrown forward.

The Aztec began letting down, tail first. It was a sickening moment. The braking rockets astern, heavy with smoke, thundered through the hull. The smoke blanketed out the ports. The cabin vibrated. He straightened the nose with the steering rockets, letting the ship fall in a vertical attitude, tail first. He snapped a glance at the radar altimeter and punched a button.

A servo mechanism somewhere in the ship started a small motor. A tubular spidery metal framework was projected out from the tail, extending some twenty feet before it locked into position. It was a failing device intended to absorb the energy generated by the landing impact.

Prochaska looked worriedly out the side port. Crag followed his eyes. Small details on the plain of Arzachel loomed large—pits, cracks, low ridges of rock. Suddenly the plain was an appalling reality. Rocky fingers reached to grip them. He twisted his head until he caught sight of Bandit. It was moving down, tail first, but it was still high in the sky. Too high, he thought. He took a fast look at the radar altimeter and punched the full battery of braking rockets again. The force on his body seemed unbearable. Blood was forced into his head, blurring his vision. His ears buzzed and his spine seemed to be supporting some gigantic weight. The pressure eased and the ground began moving up more slowly. The rockets were blasting steadily.

For a split-second the ship seemed to hang in mid-air followed by a violent shock. The cabin teetered, then smashed onto the plain, swaying as the framework projecting from the tail crumpled. The shock drove them hard into their seats. They sat for a moment before full realization dawned. They were down—alive!

Crag and Prochaska simultaneously began shucking their safety belts. Crag was first. He sprang to the side port just in time to see the last seconds of Bandit's landing. It came down fast, a perpendicular needle stabbing toward the lunar surface. Flame spewed from its braking rockets; white smoke enveloped its nose.

Fast ... too fast, he thought. Suddenly the flame licked out. Fuel error. The thought flashed through his mind. The fuel Bandit had wasted in space maneuvering to destroy the drone had left it short. The rocket seemed to hang in the sky for a scant second before it plummeted straight down, smashing into the stark lunar landscape. The Chief