Chapter IX

Cold and lifeless, the surface of the moon expanded before them. The six man crew of the spaceship sat in the control cabin. Alan was at the controls. The reporter stood at the door, facing them with his back to the companionway. The atomic pistol was unwavering in his hand.

"You were at the Security Council meeting," Alan said bitterly. "You're working for Keifer. You sent those men to kidnap Laura. Then, in the confusion at the spacefield, you claimed the President had designated you to cover the story for Earth, and--"

The reporter nodded. "A man's a fool not to join the winning side while he can. You'll take this ship down in Tycho crater. You'll land near the old Terra Mines dome. They'll drag you in through the domelock with a tractor beam. You'll be able to watch them launch the bomb to Earth."

Jagged, pock-marked and buried in its mantle of pumice, the surface of the moon sped by below them. Dark, somber _maria_, the broad deep valleys of the moon, appeared, were reached and left behind. Rills cut tortuously across the moonscape; rays like molten gold radiated from some of the craters.

Finally, the great ringwall of Tycho crater flashed into view. At one side, just inside the ringwall of the crater and more than two-score miles from the lonely central peaks, the glassite dome which had housed Terra Mines in the early days of space travel could be seen.

Alan brought the spaceship down on its tail, its rocket exhaust blasting the pumice below with blistering heat.

There was still time, Alan thought.

But they were helpless.

He wondered if, in decisive moments, history was full of such traitors--men like the reporter who would soon bring civilization on Earth, life on Earth, to an end when he returned Alan and his crew over to Keifer's Federation forces within the dome. He shrugged--then wondered also how strongly a man had to believe to forfeit his life for a principle.

For if he tried anything, the reporter would kill him.

If he didn't, you could count the time remaining for Earth in hours.

Abruptly, he slapped his hand across the firing lever, heard the surge of sudden power at the same moment that the ship rocked and plunged moonward on its side. There were shouts behind him in the cabin. There was a split-second of confusion.

Alan spun around and dove across the room for the reporter. The man had fallen and was just climbing to his feet when Alan reached him. He must have decided there was no time to fire. Instead, he hurled the heavy weapon at Alan.

It struck his shoulder, fell away. Then he was on the reporter, reaching for his throat, choking him, strangling.... Hands dragged him clear.

"He's unconscious," someone said. "Lay off, Tremaine."

There was a lurch as tractor beams from the dome caught and held the spaceship. They were tugged through the domelock but all were heavily-armed with atomic rifles and pistols when the ship came to a stop inside.

* * * * *

Another ship lay on its side within the half-mile-in-diameter dome. A dozen men stood about, waiting for them to be delivered like sheep.

Alan led his men outside into the cool, canned air of the dome. Their concentrated fire was unexpected and deadly, dropping the Federation men where they stood. Three or four of them managed to crawl behind the second ship, from where they returned the fire. One of Alan's men fell.

"Quick!" Alan cried. "Three of you cut around the front of the ship. Stan and I will slip around the tail rockets."

Without waiting for an answer, he led the pilot through a fierce barrage of atomic pellets toward the rear of the spaceship. As the missiles struck the ground on all sides of them, they exploded violently, kicking up man-tall geysers of luna pumice.

"You're covered from both sides!" Alan shouted, poking his head cautiously around the rocket tubes. His answer was a stream of atomic pellets, which struck the tubes and fused them. Ignoring the deadly fire, Alan plunged on, feeling the kick of his own atomic rifle as he triggered shot after shot blindly ahead of him.

There were two men left alive back there, standing back to back, trembling, their hands high over their heads.

"Where's Keifer?" Alan barked at them.

One pointed vaguely outside the dome. "The central mountains," he said.

"What are you talking about?"

"A shipload of technicians brought the bomb there from the space-warp. That's where Terra Mines had its launching equipment. Honest. I swear it's the truth."

"Is Keifer there too?"

"Yes. With the girl. They went out in one of Terra Mines' old luna tanks to watch the launching."

"When is it?"

"Half an hour, maybe less," the Federation soldier said. "You couldn't stop them. You'll never get there in time."

"Is there another tank?"

The soldier nodded, pointed across the pumice to a squat green vehicle with caterpillar treads. Alan was already running for it and calling over his shoulder. "Stay here. If the remaining Federation ships try to come down, use the dome-guns on them. Stan, you come with me."

The pilot sprinted after him. Together they entered the moon tank, which was not airtight. They found Terra Mines spacesuits inside, the ancient, long-unused type that looked like deep sea suits. The tank's rocket engine sputtered and caught. The tank lumbered toward the domelock and through it while they donned the spacesuits.

Then they were bouncing soundlessly across the airless surface of Tycho crater, leaving the dome far behind them. Earth was above them in the sky, in the quarter-phase. You could see part of North America reflecting sunlight. Blue-black, the Pacific Ocean was in shadow.

Ahead loomed the central mountains of Tycho crater, biting into the black sky, saw-toothed, for fifteen thousand feet. On labored the moon tank, climbing now, its old engine whining a protest against the steep grade, the sound echoing strangely inside the vehicle because outside in the luna vacuum it could not be heard at all. They crossed the first peak of the range, looked down on a great cauldron in the rock, a crater within the crater, a mile across.

At one end was a Federation spaceship, standing on its tail rockets and pointing up at the sky like a gleaming needle.

At the other end was the launching platform, massive, indistinct in the gloomy shadows of the mountains. On the platform, partially out of shadow, rested the cobalt bomb, big as a small spaceship.

Another tank sped toward them across the uneven moonscape. Two men were perched atop it in red spacesuits, firing already although they were still out of range.

* * * * *

Alan tapped Stan on the shoulder, told the pilot he was going outside. He slipped through the hatch and climbed on top of the lurching tank, squatting there and slamming a fresh ammo pan into his atomic rifle.

The trip across the crater had consumed ten minutes of the time left for Earth. What remained--twenty minutes? Twenty-five?

Suddenly, the moon tank shuddered beneath Alan's feet. They had come within range sooner than he had expected. He felt himself hurled away, and tumbled across the rocks as the tank burst briefly into flame, devouring in seconds the oxygen stored in the fuel tanks. With an eerie, noiseless blast, the tank exploded.

Alan scrambled forward across the rocks. Somehow, he had managed to hold his atomic rifle. He wondered if the mechanism had been damaged by his fall.

He didn't have time to think about it. The other tank, now less than fifty yards away, was coming toward him. He fired once, forced to reveal his position. A spacesuited figure fell from the tank, but another climbed up through the hatch to join the man still kneeling there.

The tank was thirty yards away now, still coming.

Concealed partially behind an out-cropping of rock, Alan fired again, saw a second figure tumble off the roof of the tank, rolling down a steep incline. The third man was returning his fire, but wildly. At the last moment he tried to scramble within the hatch, but his glassite helmet exploded as one of Alan's pellets caught it.

The tank was upon him, its caterpillar treads rolling soundlessly across the rock. Flinging his rifle out of the way, Alan dove between the two great treads and clung there. He could feel the jagged rocks cutting into his spacesuit, scraping it, weakening the fabric. In seconds, the fabric would rupture.

There was a hatch on the under-belly of the tank. Dragged along, Alan held on with one hand and pried at the hatch with the other. He was bruised and shaken by the rocks.

The hatch swung clear.

Alan chinned himself into the tank. A spacesuited figure sat over the controls. Another one was staring at Alan through the glassite helmet of a modern spacesuit.

It was Laura.

He didn't know if she would recognize him through the visor of his ancient suit. She screamed, "Alan! Look out!"

Keifer was rising from the controls, plunging toward him. Alan met him half way over the open hatch, grappled with him there. In Keifer's hand was an atomic pistol. He couldn't bring it down to bear on Alan, but was beating him across the head with it, the sound of metal striking metal booming in Alan's ears. If his helmet had been glassite, he thought, Keifer could have killed him.

He lost his footing and slipped, spread-eagling over the open hatch. Keifer fell on him, pushing, trying to force him through. "You can't stop the bomb," he said, his voice cold and metallic over the suit radio. "It's all automatic now."

For answer, Alan swung his metal-shod fists at Keifer's glassite helmet. He felt himself slipping. In seconds, Keifer's weight would drive him through the hatch. He pounded the glassite helmet above him. Blindly, he kept on pounding it. His legs were slipping, dangling through the hatch over the jagged rocks. The slightest rip in the fabric of his suit would bring instant death.

All at once, a crack appeared in Keifer's helmet, running from crown to chin. Alan struck again with his right fist. The crack became a hole. Keifer opened his mouth to scream, but then his face was swelling, bloated--became a shapeless thing which no longer could fit within the helmet.

Trembling, Alan stood up and rushed to the control. He saw that Laura was already heading the moon tank back toward the launching platform. He had a few seconds in which to play....

The tank lurched to a stop beside the platform.

* * * * *

Hand over hand, Alan was climbing the scaffold. He reached the platform with the tank's atomic rifle strapped across his shoulders. Half a dozen technicians were preparing to leave.

"Shut it off!" Alan shouted. "Don't launch that bomb!"

"We can't stop it now. The mechanism is set."

"I'll kill you if I have to."

"We can't, don't you understand? The bomb will be launched in five minutes--no, four minutes and fifty seconds now. Once set, it's fully automatic. We didn't want to set it. Keifer made us do it. You're Alan Tremaine, aren't you?" the technician asked. "We're on your side, Tremaine. Most of the Outworlds are, ever since Earth's broadcast. But Keifer came here with a hard core of his followers in a small fleet and--"

"Never mind the talk. Can't you render the bomb harmless?"

The technician shook his head within the glassite helmet.

Overhead, the quarter-phase Earth was shining brightly, waiting helplessly.

"It's the radioactive cobalt that will do the damage," Alan said. "An atomic trigger for the hydrogen bomb, a hydrogen trigger for the cobalt, right?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Then strip off the cobalt, you fools!"

"Three minutes," someone said. "We've got to get out of here. The after-burners of the launching charge will cremate us."

"It can be done," one of the technicians told Alan, "but I don't think you have the time."

"How, man? Tell me how!"

"Use your rifle. There's a seam running around the bomb. See? See it. If you can cut around the whole seam, the cobalt should fall away in two hemispheres. A hydrogen bomb alone would be launched at Earth, but it should fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean."

"Two minutes, forty seconds."

The technicians moved about uneasily. Two of them began to climb down the scaffold. The rest remained to watch Alan. They would save the Earth or perish with him.

Alan raised his atomic rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the thin welded seam about the huge bomb, and began to fire. At first there was nothing. The pellets hit the bomb, which could only be triggered by an atomic implosion at its core, and exploded there.

"A minute and a half," someone said, his voice hoarse over Alan's suit radio.

The seam was widening, became a gap a foot across. Alan continued firing, the rifle slapping back against his numb shoulder. The crack spread around the circumference of the bomb.

"One minute to blast-off!"

Alan fired his last volley, stood there in despair. He had run out of ammunition.

The cobalt outer skin of the bomb shook, spread apart, fell away in two equal hemispheres. The technicians were plunging down the scaffold, Alan right behind them. They tumbled inside the moon tank.

Laura didn't have to be told. The tank bounced away at full speed.

Behind them, a brilliant flash lit the lunar sky. For a moment, Alan could see the hydrogen bomb streaking Earthward, a silver speck against the blackness. Then it was gone. It was a vast trigger now, and nothing more. Harmlessly, it would explode in the Pacific Ocean, like dozens of tests which had been conducted there.

The Outworlds would agree to Equal Union now. Alan knew that. The technician had told him. They had never liked the war. They were ready to rally behind his name. There would be some ugliness between Earth and the Outworlds for a time, because of what had almost happened. But it would pass.

The Lunar Mines dome loomed ahead of them. The domelock opened to admit them.

"I wish we were inside already," Laura said, "where there's some air."

"What for?" Alan asked her.

"So I can take off this helmet and kiss you."

Nothing would suit Alan better. Now, at last, they were inside. He took off his helmet.