Jeff Sutton Read online

  "Easy. It's me—Gotch." Crag relaxed. A square solid figure took form.

  "Don't turn on the light."

  "Okay. What gives?"

  "One moment." Gotch turned back toward the door and beckoned. Another figure glided into the room—a shadow in the dim light Crag caught the glint of a uniform. Air Force officer, he thought

  Gotch said crisply; "Out of bed."

  He climbed out, standing alongside the bed in his shorts, wondering at the Colonel's cloak-and-dagger approach.

  "Okay, Major, it's your turn," Gotch said.

  The newcomer—Crag saw he was a major—methodically stripped down to' his shorts and got into bed without a word. Crag grinned, wondering how the Major liked his part in Step One. It was scarcely a lead role.

  Gotch cut into his thoughts. "Get dressed." He indicated the Major's uniform. Crag donned the garments silendy. When he had finished the Colonel walked around him in the dark, studying him from all angles.

  "Seems to fit very well," he said finally. "All right, let's go"

  Crag followed him from the room wondering what the unknown Major must be thinking. He wanted to ask about his double but refrained. Long ago he had learned there was a time to talk, and a time to keep quiet. This was the quiet time. At the outer door four soldiers sprang from the darkness and boxed them in. A chauffeur jumped from a waiting car and opened the rear door. At the last moment Crag stepped aside and made a mock bow.

  "After you, Colonel." His voice held a touch of sarcasm.

  Gotch grunted and climbed into the rear seat and he followed. The chauffeur blinked his lights' twice before starting the engine. Somewhere ahead a car pulled away from the curb. They followed, leaving the four soldiers behind. Crag twisted his body and looked curiously out the rear window. Another car dogged, their wake. Precautions, always precautions-, he thought. Gotch had entered with an Air Force officer and had ostensibly left with one; ergo, it must be the same officer. He chuckled, thujking he had more doubles than a movie star.

  They sped through the night with the escorts fore and aft. Cotch was a silent hulking form on the seat, beside him. It's his zero hour, too, Crag thought. The Colonel had tossed the dice. Now he was waiting for their fall, with his career in the pot. After a while Cotch said conversationally:

  "You'll report in at Albrook, Major. I imagine you'll be getting in a bit of flying from here on out."

  Talking for the chauffeur's benefit, Crag thought. Good Lord, did every move have to be cloak and dagger? Aloud he said:

  "Be good to get back in the air again. Perhaps anti-sub patrol, eh?" "Very likely."

  They fell silent again. The car slammed west on Highway 80, leaving the silver rocket farther behind with every mile. Where to and what next? He gave up trying to figure the Colonel's strategy. One thing he was sure of. The hard-faced man next to him knew exactly what he was doing. If it was secret agent stuff, then that's the way it had to be played.

  He leaned back and thought of the task ahead—the rocket he had lived with for over a year. Now the marriage would be consummated. Every detail of the Aztec was vivid in his mind. Like the three great motors tucked triangularly between her tail fins, each a tank equipped with a flaring nozzle to feed in hot gases under pressure. He pictured the fuel tanks just forward of the engines; the way the fuels were mixed, vaporized, forced into the fireports where they would ignite and react explosively, generating the enormous volumes of flaming hot gas to drive out through the jet tubes and provide the tremendous thrust needed to boost her into the skies. Between the engines and fuel tanks was a maze of machinery—fuel lines, speed controllers, electric motors.

  He let his mind rove over the rocket thinking that before many hours had passed he would need every morsel of the knowledge he had so carefully gathered. Midway where the hull tapered was a joint, the separation point between the first and second stages. The second stage had one engine fed by two tanks. The exterior of the second stage was smooth, finless, for it was designed to operate at the fringe of space where the air molecules were widely spaced; but it could be steered by small deflectors mounted in its blast stream.

  The third stage was little more than a space cabin riding between the tapered nose cone and a single relatively low-thrust engine. Between the engine and tanks was a maze of turbines, pumps, meters, motors, wires. A generator provided electricity for the ship's electric and electronic equipment; this in turn was spun by a turbine driven by the explosive decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. Forward of this was the Brain, a complex guidance mechanism which monitored engine performance, kept track of speed, computed course. All that was needed was the human hand. His hand.

  They traveled several hours with only occasional words, purring across the flat sandy wastes at a steady seventy. The cars boxing them in kept at a steady distance.

  Crag watched the yellow headlights sweep across the sage lining the highway, giving an odd illusion of movement. Light and shadow danced in eerie patterns. The chauffeur turned onto a two-lane road heading north. Alpine Base, Crag thought He had been stationed there several years before. Now it was reputed to be.the launch site of one of the three drones slated to cross the gulfs of space. The chauffeur drove past a housing area and turned in the direction he knew the strip to be.

  Somewhere in the darkness ahead a drone brooded on its pad, one of the children of the silver missile they'd left behind. But why the drone? The question bothered him. They were stopped several times in the next half mile. Each time

  Cotch gave his name and rank and extended his credentials. Each time they were waved on by silent sharp-eyed sentries, but only after an exacting scrutiny Crag was groping for answers when the chauffeur pulled to one side, of the road and stopped. He leaped out and opened the rear door, standing silently to one side. When they emerged, he got back into the car and drove away. No word had been spoken. Figures moved toward them, coming out of the blackness.

  "Stand where you are and be recognized." The figures took shape—soldiers with leveled rifles. They stood very still until one wearing a captain's bars approached, flashing a light in their faces.

  "Identity?"

  Crag's companion extended his credentials.

  "Colonel Michael Gotch," he monotoned. The Captain turned the light on Cotch's face to compare it with the picture on the identification card. He paid scant attention to Crag. Finally he looked up.

  "Proceed, Sir." It was evident the Colonel's guest was very much expected.

  Cotch struck off through the darkness with Crag at his heels. The stars shone with icy brillance. Overhead An tares stared down from its lair in Scorpio, blinking with fearful venom. The smell of sage filled the air, and some sweet elusive odor Crag couldn't identify. A warmth stole upward as the furnace of the desert gave up its'Stored heat. He strained his eyes into the darkness; stars, the black desert and the hulking form of Gotch, moving with certain

  steps.

  He saw the rocket with startling suddenness—a great black silhouette blotting out a segment of the stars. It stood gigantic, towering, graceful, a taper-nosed monster crouched to spring, its finned haunches squatted against the launch pad.

  They were stopped, challenged, allowed to proceed. Crag pondered the reason far their visit to the drone. Gotch, he knew, had a good reason for every move he made. They drew nearer and he saw that most of the catwalks, guardrails and metal supports had been removed—a certain sign that the giant before them was near its zero hour.

  Another sentry gave challenge at the base of the behemoth. Crag whistled to himself. This one wore the silver leaf of a lieutenant colonel! The ritual of identification was exacting before the sentry moved aside. A ladder zigzagged upward through what skeletal framework still remained. Crag lifted his eyes. It terminated high up, near the nose.

  This was the Aztec! The real Aztec! The truth came in a rush. The huge silver ship at Burning Sands, which bore the name Aztec, was merely a fake, a subterfuge, a pawn in the complex game of agents and counter-a
gents. He knew he was right.

  "After you," Cotch said. He indicated the ladder and stepped aside.

  Crag started up. He paused at the third platform. The floor of the desert was a sea of darkness. Off in the distance the lights of Alpine Base gleamed, stark against the night. Cotch reached his level and laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  Crag turned and waited. The Colonel's massive form was a black shadow interposed between him and the lights of Alpine Base.

  "This is the Aztec," he said simply.

  "So I guessed. And the silver job at Burning Sands?"

  "Drone Able," Gotch explained. "The deception was necessary—a" part of the cat and mouse game we've been playing the last couple of decades. We couldn't take a single chance." Crag remained silent. The Colonel turned toward the lights of the Base. He had become quiet, reflective. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost like a man tallring to himself.

  "Out there are hundreds of men who have given a large part of their lives to the dream of space flight Now we are at the eve of making that dream live. If we gain the moon, we gain the planets. That's the destiny of Man. The Aztec is the first step." He turned back and faced Crag.

  "This is but one base. There are many others. Beyond them are the factories, laboratories, colleges, scientists and engineers, right down to Joe the Riveter. Every one of them has had a part in the dream. You're another part, Adam, but you happen to have the lead role." He swiveled around and looked silently at the distant lights. The moment was solemn. A slight shiver ran through Crag's body.

  "You know and I know that the Aztec is a development from the ICBM's guarding Fortress America. You also know, or have heard, that out in San Diego the first atom-powered spaceship is nearing completion.'' He looked sharply at Crag.

  "I've heard," Crag said noncommittally.

  Cotch eyed him steadily. "That's the point. So have others. Our space program is no secret. But we've suspected— feared—that the first stab at deep space would be made before the atom job was completed. Not satellites but deep space rockets. That's why the Aztec was pushed through so fast." He fell silent. Crag waited.

  "Well, the worst has happened. The enemy is ready to launch—may have launched this very night. That's how close it is. Fortunately our gamble with the Aztec is paying off We're ready, too, Adam.

  "We're going to get that moon. Get it nowl" He reached into a pocket and extracted his pipe, then thought better of lighting it. Crag waited. The Colonel was in a rare introspective mood, a quiet moment in which he mentally tied together and weighed his Nation's prospects in the frightening days ahead. Finally he spoke:

  "We put a rocket around the moon, Adam." He smiled faintly, noting Crag's involuntary start of surprise. "Naturally it was fully instrumented. There's uranium there—one big load located in the most inaccessible spot imaginable." "ArzacheL" Crag said simply.

  "The south side of Arzachel, to be exact. That's why we didn't pick a soft touch like Mare Imbrium, in case you've wondered."

  "I've wondered."

  "Adam," the Colonel hesitated a long moment, "does the name Pickering mean anything to you?" "Ken Pickering who—"

  "What have you heard?" snapped Gotch. His eyes became sharp drills.

  Crag spoke slowly: "Nothing . . for a long time. He just seemed to drop oue of sight after he broke the altitude record in the X-34." He looked up questioning!/.

  "Frankly, I've always wondered why he hadn't been selected for this job. I thought he was a better pilot than I am," he added almost humbly.

  Gotch said blundy: "You're right. He is better." He smiled tolerantly. "We picked our men for particular jobs," he said finally. "Pickering . . . we hope . . . will be in orbit before the Aztec blasts off."

  "Satelloid?"

  "The first true satelloid," the Colonel agreed. "One that can ride the fringes of space around the earth. A satelloid with fantastic altitude and speed. I'm telling you this because bell be a Hnk in Step One, a communication and observation link. He won't be up long, of course, but long enough—we hope."

  Silence fell between them. Crag looked past die Colonel's shoulder. All at once the lights of Alpine Base seemed warm ind near, almost personal. Gotch lifted his eyes skyward, [ymboh'c of his dreams. The light of distant stars reflected off lis brow.

  "We don't know whether the Aztec can make it," he said

  humbly. "We don't know whether our space-lift system will work, whether the drones can be monitored down to such a precise point on the moon, or the dangers of meteorite bombardment. We don't know whether our. safeguards for human life are adequate. We don't know whether the opposition can stop us. .

  "We don't know lots of things, Adam. All we know is that we need the moon. It's a matter of survival of Western Man, his culture, his way of life, his political integrity. We need the moon to conquer the planets' . . and some day the stars."

  His voice became a harsh clang.

  "So does the enemy. That's why we have to establish a proprietory ownership, a claim that the U.N. will recognize. The little nations represent the balance of power, Adam. But they sway with the political winds. They are the reeds of power politics . . . swaying between the Sputniks and Explorers, riding with the ebb and flow of power always trying to anticipate the ultimate winner. Right now they're watching to see where that power lies. The nation that wins the moon will tilt the balance in its favor. At a critical time, I might add. That's why we have to protect ourselves every inch of the way."

  He tapped his cold pipe moodily against his hand. "We won't be here to see the end results, of course. That won't be in our time. But we're the starters. The Aztec is the pioneer ship. And in the future our economy can use that load of

  uranium up there."

  He smiled faintly at Crag. "When you step through the hatch you've left earth, perhaps for all time. That's your part in the plan. Step One is your baby and I have confidence in you." He gripped Crag's arm warmly. It was the closest he had ever come to showing his feelings toward the man he was sending into space.

  "Come on, let's go."

  Crag started upward. Gotch followed more slowly, climbing like a man bearing a heavy weight.

  The Aztec's crew, Max Frochaska, Cordon Nagel and Martin Larkwell, came aboard the rocket in the last hour before take-off. Gotch escorted them up the ladder and introduced them to their new Commander.

  Prochaska acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful smile.

  "Glad to know you, Skipper." His thin warm face said he was glad to be there.

  Gordon Nagel gave a perfunctory handshake, taking in the space cabin with quick ferret-like head movements.

  Martin Larkwell smiled genially, pumping Crag's hand. "I've been looking forward to this."

  Crag said dryly. "We all have." He acknowledged the introductions with the distinct feeling that he already knew each member of his crew. It was the odd feeling of meeting old acquaintances after long years of separation. As part of his indoctrination he had studied the personnel records of the men he might be so dependent on. Now, seeing them in the flesh, was merely an act of giving life to those selfsame records. He studied them with casual eyes while Gotch rambled toward an awkward farewell.

  Max Prochaska, his electronics chief, was -a slender man with sparse brown hair, a thin acquiline nose and pointed jaw. His pale blue eyes, thin lips and alabaster skin gave him a delicate look—one belied by his record. His chief asset— if one was to believe the records-was that he was a genius in electronics.

  Gordon Nagel, too, was, thin-faced and pallid skinned. His black hair, normally long and wavy, had been close-cropped. His eyes were small, shifting, agate-black, giving Crag the feeling that he was uneasy—an impression he was to hold. His record had described him as nervous in manner but bis psychograph was smooth. He was an expert in oxygen systems.

  Martin Larkwell, the mechanical maintenance and construction boss, in many ways appeared the antithesis of his two companions. He was moon-faced, dark, with short brown hair
and a deceptively sleepy look. His round body was well-muscled, his hands big and square. Crag thought of a sleek drowsy cat, until he saw his eyes. They were sparkling brown pools, glittering, moving with some strange inner fire. They were the eyes of a dreamer . or a fanatic, he thought. In the cabin's soft light they glowed, flickered. No, there was nothing sleepy about him, he decided.

  All of the men were short, light, in their early thirties. In contrast Crag, at 5" 10" and 165 pounds, seemed a veritably giant. A small physique, he knew, was almost an essential in space, where every ounce was bought at tremendous added weight in fuel. His own weight had been a serious strike against him.

  Colonel Gotch made one final trip to the space cabin. This time he brought the Moon Code Manual (stamped TOP SECRET), the crew personnel records (Crag wondered why) and a newly printed pamphlet titled "Moon Survival." Crag grinned when he saw it.

  "Does it tell us how to get there, too?"

  "Well write that chapter later," Gotch grunted. He shook each man's hand and gruffly wished them luck before turning abruptly toward the hatch. He started down the ladder. A moment later his head reappeared.

  He looked sharply at Crag and said, "By the way, that twosome at the Blue Door got it last night."

  "You mean . . ?"

  "Burp gun. No finesse. Just sheer desperation. Well, I just wanted to let you know we weren't altogether crazy." "I didn't think you were."

  The Colonel's hps wrinkled in a curious smile. "No?" He looked at Crag for a long moment. "Good luck." His head disappeared from view and Crag heard his footsteps descending the ladder.

  Then they were alone7four men alone. Crag turned toward his companions.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE GREAT red sun was just breaking over the desert horizon when Crag got bis last good look at earth. Its rays slanted upward, shadows fled from the sage; the obsidian sky with its strewn diamonds became slate gray and, in moments, a pale washed blue. Daybreak over the desert became a thunder of light. Tiny ants had removed the last of the metal framework encompassing the rocket. Other ants were visible making last minute cheeks.