City on the Moon

CHAPTER IV. ARELENE GRAY

KENMORE crowded into the small airlock. Moreau followed to its outer door and grasped the outer catch. But when Kenmore closed the inner seal so that the outer could open again, Moreau was taken unaware. The lock-door swung open; he lost balance, and it slammed shut again. Its cycle would be automatic; it was locked until the inner door was opened and closed again.

The jeep started off instantly, and Moreau was left dangling on the ladder. He swore violently in his own language and banged on the lock as the speed of the jeep increased. There would be other bangings audible to Joe Kenmore, inside. The dented wheel made a rhythmic bumping at each revolution. The speed increased yet more, and Moreau swore still more violently. He banged in a pattern: three deliberate bangs, three quick ones, and three deliberate ones. SOS. He repeated it.

The jeep hit its maximum speed of forty miles an hour over the undulating, dust-covered sea-surface. The earthshine made it look like a snowfield, save that the jeep's wheels splashed up the whitish stuff like a liquid. With no air to scatter its particles, the stuff settled down again, slowly, also like a liquid. The jeep left twin, nonspreading wakes behind its wheels; they looked like double furrows, slowly subsiding behind.

Moreau achieved unsuspected eloquence in his profanity as he was flung about. To fall, now, might mean to be thrown beneath those giant wheels. In any event, to walk back to the City was hardly practical, and might be impossible. With no lights to guide him, and only the ramparts of the Apennines for markers, he could pass the City by without seeing it. And he had not topped his air tanks lately.

Moreau hung by one hand and both feet to the whipping rope ladder. He fumbled behind his shoulder and brought out a signal rocket. He tapped off its guard cap against the solid, wildly swaying cabin overhead, and squeezed the rocket's tail when he thought he had it aimed just right. It erupted lurid, red sparks and leaped out of his hand. It struck the ground, bounced up, and bounced again. It flew ahead of the jeep; Kenmore could not possibly fail to see it and be reminded of Moreau's existence.

The jeep slowed to a stop, and its inner lock-door clanked. Moreau heard it when his helmet pressed against the outer one. He opened the outer door, crawled inside, and thankfully shut the outer door behind him.

The jeep was already in motion again when he wormed himself up into the cabin. Then emotion overcame him. He took off his helmet and expressed himself at furious length—but unintelligibly to Joe Kenmore.

"I'm sorry," said Kenmore tonelessly, when he was out of breath. "I heard the lock and thought you were inside. Then I stopped thinking about you. I'm trying to think straight, and it's not easy. Arlene is down somewhere on the moon. With luck, she may be out here. But if the ship came down in the Apennines . . ."

His voice cut off with a click. He drove, staring out where the rays of the jeep's lights brightened the surface. But he could not see far; the surface of the Mare Imbrium here was almost perfectly level, the horizon two miles away. Moreover, earthlight on the moon—like moonlight on the Earth—is vastly deceptive, If the Earthship was down on the Mare Imbrium, it would show up by daylight, true—but daylight was a hundred and fifty hours away. The ship had to be found now!

So Kenmore drove straight ahead, staring desperately to either side, until he was sure he'd gone past where he'd seen the light. Then he drove out . . .

He made circles. He made loops. He tried frantically to organize his efforts; yet when it came time to make a turn, he felt desperately certain that if he only kept on a little farther . . .

And over and above his own and Arlene's disaster, there was a greater one in prospect—even for them. Because Civilian City and the Space Laboratory were, after all, the ultimate strivings of civilization to make itself secure and strong, and to establish a new dynamism in the overall activity of humankind. War would end all civilization, but war was impossible only because of the missile bases on the moon. So long as they stood, the world and humankind was safe from its own folly, because they were in hands which recognized war as a form of suicide and would not permit it.

But there had been one man in the City who knew the position of the nearest missile base. Directions for reaching it had been entrusted to him—directions tightly sealed, for use only in the direst of emergencies. That man had panicked and opened the sealed memorandum; now he led the City's population to a missile base which could not possibly shelter all the refugees. Presently, there would be citizens of the City in each of the missile bases.

Some of the refugees could know and remember their locations—which would thereupon no longer be secret. Then it would be possible for someone to send up pods of bombing rockets, radar-masked, to blast the defenders of the world's peace and all its hopes. Once that happened, the Space Laboratory would hold no more promise, and Earth would soon be racked with war.

But Kenmore put these facts and speculations aside. Arlene was somewhere on the moon.

After a long time, Moreau heard him trying to swallow. His throat made sounds, but his swallowing apparatus did not work. "It—couldn't have been more than twenty miles out," he said. "We saw it, only I didn't notice the bearing. It's good astrogation to land on the dark side of the moon, within twenty miles of one's target, when there's no ground-radar to help. It's too good to expect, but it's not too much to hope for . . ."

Moreau said detachedly, "You feel frustrated, Joe— the way I did when I could not make you notice my bangings on the airlock. Ha! I used a signal rocket to catch your attention!"

Kenmore was tense and strained past endurance. He said violently, "We fire signal rockets! Now!"

He plucked at the cover of the firing buttons for the signal rockets mounted in the jeep-cabin roof. Moreau said, "Wait until I climb to where I can look out of the observation-blister!"

He went behind the driver's seat, up the cleats on the wall. Moreau stared out of the ceiling port, which was shaped like a goldfish bowl and presented direct vision to the sides and the rear, as well as above and ahead. Kenmore brought the jeep to a halt.

His hand shook as he stabbed a firing button. There was a growling, and then silence. In Kenmore's eyes the powdery surface of the lava sea took on a reddish tint. Signal rockets for moon use leave a long-lasting trail of red fire, because a line of light is always artificial, and really vivid red is the rarest color among stars. It shows best against the lunar sky.

The signal rocket went away and up and up. It rose much faster than one shot from Earth, and many times higher; but it would not reach to the top of the Apennines against the horizon.

The jeep was still; Kenmore heard his own harsh breathing. The signal rocket dwindled and dwindled ... It went out.

Five minutes later a thread of red light rose from below the horizon to the north.

"Take bearings!" said Moreau urgently. "Joe, take bearings!"

Kenmore took a bearing; his hands shook. He fired two more signal rockets, branching away from each other, in conventional acknowledgment that the previous signal had been seen. Then the jeep swung into its highest speed, bumping over the Mare Imbrium.

It was a long way, and to Kenmore it seemed a longer time. Once again a signal rocket rose. It seemed to be a call for haste, and Kenmore's heart was pumping; he could not seem to go fast enough. He said jerkily, "I've half a mind to dump the load we're carrying!"

"We bounce sufficiently as it is. The load at least keeps us from taking off like a rocket ourselves."

And so the jeep went racketing and clanking and bumping over a surface that looked like solidified pitch with a light powdering of grayish snow. The dust spurted up like liquid and settled like a plowed furrow, and there was not a whisper of sound outside, but a thunderous bumping of the dented wheel within.

A third signal rocket rose in the night; they saw it rise. Kenmore wheeled the jeep—he had been about to race past—and trundled toward the spot. He trembled a little as he swept the search beam back and forth.

He saw the Earth-rocket. It had not made a good surfacing. It lay on its side, which was something of a catastrophe in itself. Much more ominous, there were figures in vacuum suits already outside it.

When the jeep stopped, within yards, Moreau was ready to swing down the ladder to help. Kenmore said hoarsely into the talkie-microphone, "Arlene?"

Her voice came happily from the speaker: "I knew you'd find us, Joel"

A new, indignant male voice cut in. "What happened to the beam? We could get no response from the City! This is the devil of a way to run the moon!"

Then Moreau spoke suavely, and his voice came from the speaker too. "There is some slight confusion in Civilian City, Captain. Usually we live in chaos. Now there is merely confusion, so we do not know how to act under such conditions."

From the speaker came the chattering of teeth. Moreau went on briskly:

"The two ladies first. Up the rope ladder, ma'mselles, and into that thing which looks like a milk can dangling under the body of a jeep. You will enter it and close the door by which you enter. Above you will find a handle. It will not turn until the lower door is shut. Turn it, and you will be welcomed into our jeep."

The airlock clanked. A moment later, a helmeted head came up from the jeep's floor behind Kenmore. Then, through chattering teeth, came the most coldly furious voice he had ever heard: "Someone weel pay for thees!" It was dark, and he could not see her. He said urgently, "Move back, please. Away from me. And close the lock-door."

He did it himself, with his hands still gloved against vacuum. Blessedly, he heard the lock clank again. An instant later, another helmeted figure stood up. The faceplate opened, and Kenmore made an inarticulate sound of relief. But Arlene said quickly, "We've been outside for hours, Joe. Don't touch me! I'm—rather chilly!"

He remembered to turn on the inner lights of the ship, and looked hungrily at her. Her suit was cold enough. An hour outside, with the surface at two hundred fifty-odd below zero, meant that the exterior of even a heated suit was cold! Frost condensed upon the corrugated armor; fog formed like a gown and flowed down to the floor.

Arlene smiled at him shakily.

"The rocket toppled over when it landed, and a vision port cracked. We've been hooked in direct to the ship's reserve tanks for hours—in our suits. I'm—rather glad you came!"

The furious voice said again—and again icily, "Someone is going to pay for this!"

There was a pounding outside. Kenmore closed the lock, as Arlene stepped away. A man came up and took a deep breath of the jeep's air; another man. Yet another. When Moreau came inside, last of all, the jeep was almost unbearably crowded.

Kenmore threw in the power and headed back for the empty Civilian City. The rocket skipper managed to edge past the others to protest bitterly, "There was no radar beacon! Why? Why was there no light for us in landing? Was it intended that we crash?"

Kenmore replied with equal bitterness. "It's rather likely. The radio and radar communications of the City were sabotaged, together with the City itself." "Sabotaged? Why?"

"It is an example," Kenmore told him furiously, "of the working of that form of international co-operation for a splendid objective, which consists of everybody cutting everybody else's throat—without regard to his own!" "I do not consider that," objected the skipper hotly, "an answer to my protest!"

"Make it again to higher authority!"

Kenmore drove with both hands and both feet, and still had some need of extra members. He watched the surface in the glare-lamp glow. Presently he saw a jeep trail—rather, the trail of many jeeps all traveling in the same line. He swung to follow it toward the Apennines and the City. The people of the City had left in jeeps, naturally. It was not less than four hundred miles to the nearest armed-forces missile base, if one knew the way. The City's inhabitants could all crowd into the normal number of jeeps at the City, though the air would go bad on a long journey. This would be their trail. Kenmore backtracked it.

In half an hour, the dust-heaps which were the City loomed up again. Kenmore stopped the jeep very close, and Moreau briskly took charge of the exit. The City's entrance-lock was only yards away, and the jeep's lamps shone brightly on it. Moreau had the rescued ones turn on their chest lamps even before they got into the lock. He herded them in a line as they reached the ground; he took them to the lock. They crowded in. The door closed, and they were on their way into that abysmally dark, artificial cavern in two of whose three parts there was not enough air to keep them alive.

Kenmore had made no move to don his helmet. Without words, Arlene had remained behind, too; they were alone.

"If I'd known you even dreamed of coming up here," said Kenmore wretchedly, "I'd have warned you. It's bad, Arlene! It's a madhouse, and there are times when it looks like a suicide club!"

"You're here." After a moment, she added, "You didn't ask how I managed it. Cecile Ducros was hired by the Moon Corporation to come up and do some telecasts. There've been rumors of unpleasant things happening. The United Nations has heard there's been discrimination against non-Americans. Since we reached the moon first, and set up bases here, there's profound suspicion of us, Joe. There've been open insults. There was a movement in Congress, too, to call the whole thing off. But all the other nations yelled murder, so something had to be done."

Kenmore couldn't say anything. He slumped in his seat.

"So," said Arlene, "it's to be glamorized. Cecile Ducros can glamorize anything. She makes a business of it—beginning with herself. I don't know what she charged for this job, but it must have been plenty! She's been scared every second of the time. And she had to have somebody along who'd be able to go places and gather material for her. Somebody who'd have a faint idea of what it was all about, to tell her the woman's angle. That person turned out to be me. Aren't you pleased?"

"I'm rather—fond of you," said Kenmore. He grimaced. "You know how I feel about you, Arlene. And therefore I'd give everything I've got to have you safe back on Earth again. You see, it isn't only lunacy that's been happening here!"

"What else?"

"Everything! The real reason for coming to the moon, aside from the military one, is what we call the Laboratory, floating in space beyond farside. There are some theories about atomic energy that are too dangerous to try out on Earth. Even on the moon they might not be safe to try. It's nuclear stuff from a brand-new angle. I don't understand it, but it's needed! If it's worked out, it'll either be so dangerous that it can't even be used as a weapon, or so safe that even politicians can't use it for any harm."

Arlene raised her eyebrows. "Is there such a thing?"

"There is," said Kenmore. "Space-travel aside, there's power—unlimited power for everybody on Earth. Power to grow posies in Antarctica, if anybody wants to. Power to freshen salt water and irrigate the Sahara. Power to turn the Gobi into a garden. For the immediate future that's what the whole moon project is for—to furnish and supply a laboratory where the most dangerous experiments men ever imagined can be done safely, though not safely for the men who do them. But you know all this!"

"Most of it," Arlene admitted.

They were close together in the moon-jeep, but they wore the clumsy vacuum suits needed for movement outside. Arlene loosened the neck-clamps of her helmet and slipped it off. She shook her head as if in relief at the free movement of her hair. She smiled at Joe.

"It should have been rather good to work up here," said Kenmore, tiredly. "But it hasn't been. There was trouble on Earth with spies and saboteurs. It seemed they'd be left behind. But if we didn't bring some with us, we developed some after we got here. It's international co-operation—which means throat-cutting, here. There's suspicion. There are factions. Nobody can accomplish anything, because everybody wants a monopoly on accomplishment. Everybody fights to keep everybody else from getting ahead of him, with the result that everybody goes backwards."

Arlene smiled again at him in the jeep cabin on the Mare Imbrium on the moon, with the earthshine like silvery twilight outside.

"I could give you details, only they don't make sense," said Kenmore. "But the third-raters and the crackpots play ball with each other to prevent anybody else from doing anything the third-raters can't do. There's been every form of insane behavior that humans ever contrived, plus a few we made up for ourselves."

"Including," said Arlene cheerfully, "hauling a television personality and me up here to do broadcasts, pretending everything is peaches and whipped cream."

Kenmore laughed without being amused. "Which she won't do. I've heard this Cecile person speak just twice, up here. Both times she said, 'Somebody is going to pay for this!' "

Arlene laughed softly. "Somebody will! The woman likes money, Joe. She adores it. She will even risk her remarkably well-formed neck for it. She has! And she will collect! She has a broadcast due in something like two and a half hours."

"The communicator to Earth is sabotaged," said Kenmore.

"She has her own electronics man with her. He can make electrons jump through hoops. If he gets her just fifteen minutes' conversation with Earth before her broadcast . . ."

"What?"

"She'll make Civilian City sound like an unearthly paradise," Arlene assured him. "We'll almost believe it ourselves, listening to her and watching her! Want to bet?"

Kenmore grunted and flicked off the inside lights. "We'll go into the City and see what's turned up. The air dome seems to be holding pressure, though the others are going empty. The others must be sieves! Come along. But . . ."

They were very close together. There was silence for a moment. Vacuum suits are clumsy things to wear, but Arlene had taken off her helmet and Kenmore was not wearing his. After an interval, Arlene sighed contentedly. "You do have nice ideas, Joe!"

"Put on your helmet," he commanded. "Don't get any of your hair between the gaskets. It'll make a leak."

Arlene obeyed. Then she said, "Considering that I'm one of the first two girls ever to get to the moon, and all . . . don't you think it likely I'm the first girl ever to be kissed here?" Then she added hopefully, "Anyhow in a moon-jeep?"

"It's very likely," agreed Kenmore drily. "And if you are very good indeed, maybe you'll be the first girl ever to be kissed in Civilian City, too! But I'd give a lot if you were safely back on Earth!"

He went first out of the airlock. He was waiting for her as she came down the swaying rope ladder. They moved toward the triple dust-heap which was the abandoned habitation of human beings on the moon.