The American moon colonist was leaning unconcernedly against a front wheel. He straightened, knelt on one knee, and wrote a number in the lead-colored dust.
Leuchenko understood and turned his radio receiver to the frequency indicated. Then he nodded.
"Are you receiving me?" the American asked in badly mispronounced Russian.
"I speak English," replied Leuchenko.
"Good. That will save any misunderstanding. My name is Eli Steinmetz."
"You are the United States moon base leader?"
"I head up the project, yes."
"Major Grigory Leuchenko, Soviet Union."
Steinmetz moved closer and they stiffly shook hands. "It seems we have a problem, Major."
"One neither of us can avoid."
"You could turn around and hike back to your lunar lander," said Steinmetz.
"I have my orders," Leuchenko stated in a firm tone.
"You're to attack and capture my colony."
"Yes.
"Is there no way we can prevent bloodshed?"
"You could surrender."
"Funny," said Steinmetz. "I was about to ask the same of you."
Leuchenko was certain Steinmetz was bluffing, but the face behind the gold-tinted visor remained unreadable. All Leuchenko could see was his own reflection.
"You must realize that your people are no match for mine."
"In a knock-down, drag-out firelight you'd win," agreed Steinmetz. "But you can remain outside your landing craft only for a few hours before you must go back and replenish your breathing systems. I reckon you've already used up two."
"We have enough left to accomplish the job," Leuchenko said confidently.
"I must warn you, Major. We have a secret weapon. You and your men will surely die."
"A crude bluff, Mr. Steinmetz. I would have expected better from an American scientist."
Steinmetz corrected him. "Engineer, there's a difference."
"Whatever," said Leuchenko impatiently. As a soldier, he was out of his element in wordy negotiations. He was anxious for action. "It's senseless to carry this conversation any further. You would be wise to send your men out and turn over the facility. I'll guarantee your safety until you can be returned to earth."
"You're lying, Major. Either your people or mine will have to be erased. There can be no losers left to tell the world what happened here."
"You're wrong, Mr. Steinmetz. Surrender and you will be treated fairly."
"Sorry, no deal."
"Then there can be no quarter."
"I expected none," said Steinmetz, his tone grim. "You attack and the waste of human lives will be on your shoulders."
Anger rose within Leuchenko. "For one who is responsible for the deaths of nine Soviet cosmonauts, Mr. Steinmetz, you're hardly in a position to lecture me on human life."
Leuchenko couldn't be certain, but he swore Steinmetz tensed. Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and loped away. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Steinmetz stood there for several seconds before slowly reentering the lunar vehicle and driving back to the colony, trailing a small cloud of gray dust behind the rear wheels.
Leuchenko smiled to himself. In two more hours, three at the most, his mission would be successfully achieved. When he reached his men, he studied the layout of the craggy surface in front of the moon base through the binoculars again. Finally, when he was satisfied there were no American colonists lurking amid the rocks, Leuchenko gave the order to spread out in loose formation and advance. The elite Soviet fighting team moved forward without an inkling that Steinmetz's inventive trap was set and waiting.
<<48>>
After Steinmetz returned to the entrance of Jersey Colony's subterranean headquarters, he leisurely parked the lunar vehicle and shuffled slowly inside. He took his time, almost feeling Leuchenko's eyes probing his every movement. Once out of view of the Russians, he stopped short of the airlock and quickly stepped through a small side tunnel that gradually rose through the crater's interior slope. His passage raised small clouds of dust that filled the narrow shaft, and he had to continually wipe his visor to see.
Fifty steps and a minute later he crouched and crawled into an opening that led to a small shelf camouflaged by a large gray cloth perfectly matched to the surrounding surface. Another suited figure was lying on his stomach, gazing through the telescopic sight of a rifle.
Willie Shea, the colony's geophysicist, did not notice another presence until Steinmetz eased down beside him. "I don't think you made much of an impression," he said with a bare hint of a Boston twang. "The Slavs are about to attack the homestead."
From the elevated vantage point Steinmetz could clearly see Major Leuchenko and his men advancing across the valley. They came on like hunters stalking their prey, making no attempt to use the high ground of the crater's sides. The loose shale would have made the going too slow. Instead, they jumped across the flat ground in zigzag patterns, throwing themselves prone every thirty or forty feet, taking advantage of every boulder, every broken contour of the land. An expert marksman would have found the twisting and dodging figures nearly impossible to hit.
"Put a shot about ten feet in front of the point man," said Steinmetz. "I want to observe their reaction."
"If they're monitoring our frequency, we'll give away our every move," protested Shea.
"They haven't got time to hunt for our frequency. Shut up and shoot."
Shea shrugged inside his lunar suit, peered through the crosshairs of his scope, and squeezed off around. The gunshot was strangely silent because there was no air on the moon to carry the sound waves.
A puff of dust kicked up ahead of Leuchenko and he immediately dropped to the ground. His men followed suit and stared over the sights of their automatic weapons, waiting expectantly for more fire. But nothing happened.
"Did anyone see where it came from?" Leuchenko demanded.
The replies were negative.
"They're sighting for range," said Sergeant Ivan Ostrovski. A hardened veteran of the Afghanistan fighting, he could not believe he was actually in combat on the moon. He swept a pointed finger over the ground about two hundred meters ahead. "What do you make of those colored rocks, Major?"
For the first time Leuchenko spied several boulders scattered in a ragged line across the valley, stained with bright orange paint. "I doubt if it has anything to do with us," he said. "Probably put there for some sort of experiment."
"I think the fire came on a downward angle," said Petrov.
Leuchenko took the binoculars from his hip pack, set them on the tripod, and carefully scanned the side and rim of the crater. The sun was a blazing white but with no air to spread the light an astronaut standing in the shadows of a rock formation would be almost invisible.
"Nothing shows," he said finally.
"If they're waiting for us to close the gap, they must be conserving a small supply of ammunition."
"We'll know in another three hundred meters what kind of reception they've planned," muttered Leuchenko. "Once we come under cover of the greenhouses we'll be out of sight of the cave entrance." He rose to one knee and waved his arm forward. "Fan out and keep alert."
The five Soviet fighters leaped to their feet and scrambled on. As they reached the orange rocks another shot struck the fine sand in front of them and they flung themselves prone, a jagged line of white figures, face visors flashing in the intense rays of the sun.