"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!"