1
STEVE TEMPLIN came out of the airlock into Hadley Dome and looked around for someone to blow off steam on. Templin was fighting mad—had been that way for three days now, ever since he was ordered to report for this mysterious mission on the Moon.
Templin stripped off his pressure suit and almost threw it at the attendant. “I’m looking for Ellen Bishop,” he growled. “Where can I find her?”
The attendant said deferentially, “Miss Bishop’s suite is on Level Nine, sir. Just below the solarium.”
“Okay,” groused Templin, walking off.
“Just a second, sir,” the attendant called after him. “You forgot your check. And who shall I say is calling, please?”
Templin took the metal tag and jammed it in the pocket of his tunic. “Say nothing,” he advised over his shoulder. “I’m going to surprise her.”
He stared contemptuously around the ornate lobby of Hadley Dome, then, ignoring the waiting elevator, headed for the wide basalt stairway that led upstairs. With the force of gravity here on the Moon only about one sixth as powerful as on the surface of the Earth, an elevator was a particularly useless and irritating luxury. It was fit, Templin thought only for the kind of washed-out aristocrats who could afford to chase thrills for the five hundred dollars a day it cost them to live in Hadley Dome. Templin, a heavyweight on his home planet, weighed little over thirty-five pounds on the Moon. He bounded up the stairs in great soaring leaps, eight or ten steps at a time.
On the ninth level he paused, not even winded, and scowled about him. All over were the costly trappings of vast wealth. To Templin’s space-hardened mind, Hadley Dome was a festering sore-spot on the face of the Moon. He glowered at the deep-piled Oriental carpet on the floor, the lavish murals that had been painted on the spot by the world’s highest-priced artists.
Someone was coming down the long hall. Templin turned and saw a dark, solidly-built man coming toward him in the peculiar slow-motion walk that went with the Moon’s light gravity. Templin stopped him with a gesture.
“I’m looking for Ellen Bishop,” Templin repeated wearily. “Where’s her room?”
THE DARK man stopped and looked Templin over in leisurely fashion. Judging by the gem-studded belt buckler that adorned his brilliantly colored shorts, he was one of the Dome’s paying guests…which meant that he was a millionaire at the least. He said in a cold, confident voice: “Who the devil are you?”
Templin clamped his jaw down on his temper. Carefully he said, “My name is Templin. Steve Templin. If you know where Ellen Bishop’s room is, tell me; otherwise skip it.”
The dark man said thoughtfully, “Templin. I know that name—oh, yes. You’re that crazy explorer, aren’t you? The one who’s always hopping off to Mercury or Venus or some other planet.”
“That’s right,” said Templin. “Now look, for the last time—”
“What do you want to see Ellen Bishop about?” the dark man interrupted him.
Templin lost control. “Forget it,” he flared. He started to walk past the dark man, but the man held out his arm and stopped him. Templin halted, standing perfectly still. “Look, mister,” he said. “I’ve had a tough day, and you’re making me mad. Take your hand off my arm.”
The dark man said angrily, “By heaven, I’ll have you thrown out of the Dome if you don’t watch your tongue! I’m Joe Olcott!”
Templin deliberately shook the man’s arm off. The dark man growled inarticulately and lunged for him.
Templin side-stepped easily. “I warned you,” he said, and he brought his fist up just hard enough to make a good solid contact with the point of Olrott’s jaw. Olcott grunted and, grotesquely slowly in the light gravity, he collapsed unconscious on the carpeted floor.
A gasp from behind told Templin he had an audience. He whirled; a girl in the green uniform of a maid was frozen in the doorway of one of the rooms, one hand to her mouth in an attitude of shock.
Templin saw her and relaxed, grinning. “Don’t get upset about it,” he told her. “He was asking for it. Now maybe you can tell me where Ellen Bishop’s room is?”
The maid stammered, “Y-yes, sir. The corner suite, at the end of the corridor.”
“Thanks.”
The maid hesitated. “Did you know that that was Mr. Joseph Olcott?” she asked tentatively.
Templin nodded cheerfully. “So he told me.” In a much improved frame of mind he strolled down to the door the maid had indicated. He glanced at it disapprovingly—it was carved of a single massive piece of oak, which was rare treasure on the treeless, airless moon—but shrugged and rapped it with his knuckles.
“Come in,” said a girl’s voice from a concealed loudspeaker beside the door, and the door itself swung open automatically. Steve walked in and discovered that he was in a well-furnished drawing room, the equal of anything on Earth.
From behind a huge desk a girl faced him. She was about twenty, hair black as the lunar night, blue eyes that would have been lovely if they had any warmth.
Templin looked around him comfortably, then took out a cigarette and put it in his lips. The chemically-treated tip of it kindled to a glow as he drew in the first long puff. “I’m Steve Templin,” he said. “What do you want to see me about?”
A TRACE of a smile curved the corners of the girl’s red mouth. “Sit down, Mr. Templin,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Templin nodded and picked out the chair closest to the desk. “I’m not,” he said.
“That’s hardly flattering.”
Steve Templin shrugged. “It isn’t intended to be. I went to work for your father because I liked him and because he gave me a free hand. After he died and you took over, I renewed my contract with the company because it was the only way I saw to keep on with my work on the Inner Planets. Now—I don’t know. What do you want with me here?”
Ellen Bishop sighed. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Maybe if I knew, I wouldn’t have had to cancel your orders to go back to Mercury. All I know is that we need help here, and it looks like you’re the only one who can provide it.”
Steve asked non-comittally, “What kind of help?”
The girl hesitated. “How long have you been out of touch with what’s going on?” she countered.
“You mean while I was on Mercury? About eleven months; I just get back.”
Ellen nodded. “And has anyone told you about our—trouble here?”
Steve laughed! “Nobody told me anything,” he said flatly. “They didn’t have time, maybe. I came back from Mercury with survey charts that took me six months to make, showing where there are mineral deposits that will make anything here on the Moon look sick. All I wanted to do was turn them over to the company, pick up supplies and start out for Venus. And one of your glorified office boys was waiting for me at Denver skyport with your ether-gram, ordering me to report here. I just about had time for one real Earth meal and a bath before I caught the rocket shuttle to the Moon.”
“Well—” the girl said doubtfully. “Suppose I begin at the beginning, then. You know that my father organized this company, Terralune Projects, to develop uranium deposits here on the Moon. He raised a lot of money, set up the corporation, made plans. He even arranged to finance trips to other planets, like yours to Mercury and Venus, because doing things like that meant more to him than making money. And then he died.”
Her face shadowed. “He died,” she repeated, “and I inherited a controlling interest in Terralune. And then everything went to pot.”