Templin grinned. “When I was here there weren’t any other ships to radio to. Why don’t ship radios work?”
“Not enough power. It’s not like the Earth, you know—any little one-watt affair can broadcast there, because the signals bounce off the Heaviside Layer. But you can’t radio to anything on the Moon unless you can see it, because there isn’t any Heaviside Layer to reflect radio waves, and so they only go in straight lines.”
“How about the radio at the Dome?”
Culver shrugged. “That’s a big one; that one bounces off the Earth’s Heaviside Layer. What do you want a radio for, anyhow?”
“Wanted to save time,” Templin said succinctly. “No matter. Come on, we’ve got a job of inspection to do. Put on your pressure suit.”
Culver began complying automatically. “What are we going to do?”
“Make an external inspection. Way we were being kicked around up there, I want to make sure our outside hull is okay before I take this thing up again. Let’s go look.”
THE TWO men slipped into air-tight pressure suits, sealed the helmets and stepped lightly out onto the lunar surface.
Templin skirted the base of the rocket, carefully examining every visible line and marking on the metal skin with the help of a hand-light. Then he said into his helmet radio, “Looks all right, Culver. By the way, what’s that thing over there?”
He pointed to something that gleamed, ruddily metallic, at the base of the crater wall. Culver followed the direction of his arm.
“That’s a rocket-launching site,” he said. “Good place to stay away from. It’s a hangover from the Three-Day War—you know, when the boys got the idea they could conquer Earth by blasting it with atom-rockets from the Moon.”
Templin nodded. “I remember,” he said grimly. “My home town was one of the first cities wiped out. But why is it a good place to avoid?”
Culver scowled. “Wild radiations. They had a plutonium pile to generate power, and in the fighting the thing got out of control and blew its top. Scattered radioactive matter for half a mile around. Most of it’s dead now, of course—these isotopes have pretty short half-lives. But the pile’s still there.”
Templin said: “And there it can stay, for all of me. Well, let’s get moving. The ship looks intact to me—if it isn’t, we’ll find out when we put the power on.”
Culver followed him into the ship’s tiny pressure chamber. When they were able to take their helmets off he said curiously, “What’s your next move, Temp? Going to get after Olcott?”
“That I don’t know yet. One thing is for sure—that was no accident that just happened; he really wanted to blast us. And he had the stuff to do it with, too, with that baby battleship he was flying. It wasn’t his fault that we ducked and only got a little dose of the tail end of his rocket blast… Get in the driver’s seat, Culver. The sooner we get to the mine, the sooner the next round starts!”
THREE HOURS later, Templin was down in the mine galleries at Hyginus Cleft, staring disgruntledly at the wreck of a Mark VII digging machine. This was Gallery Eight, richest vein of uranium ore they had found; just when the Mark VII had really begun to turn out sizeable amounts of metal there had been a shift in the rock underneath, crumbling the supports and bringing the shaft’s ceiling down to pin the machine. Now the Mark VII, looking like a giant, steel-clad bug on its glittering caterpillar treads, was just half a million dollar’s worth of junk.
Culver told him, “Tim Anson, here, was running the machine when the cave-in started; he can tell you all about it.”
Templin looked at the man Culver had indicated, a short space-suited figure whose face was hidden behind an opaque mask. The mines were worked in vacuum, of course; it would have been impossible to keep the shafts filled with air. And the dangerous radiations present in the uranium ore required a special helmet for all who stayed long within range of them—a plastic material that transmitted light and other harmless rays in only one direction; dangerous rays it did not transmit at all. Templin said, “What about it, Anson? What happened?”
The man’s voice came into his helmet radio. “There’s nothing much to tell, sir,” it said. “We opened this shaft ’bout a week ago and got some very pretty samples out of it. So we put the Mark Seven in, and I was on it when all of a sudden it began to shake. I thought the machine had gone haywire somehow, so I shut it off. But the shaking kept up, so I hopped off and beat it toward the escape corridor. And then the roof came down. Good thing I was off it, too; smashed the driver’s seat like a tin toy.”
Templin scowled. “Don’t you survey these galleries?” he demanded of Culver. “If there was a rock fault underneath, why didn’t you find out about it before you brought the Mark Seven down?”
Culver spread his hands. “Believe it or not, Temp, we surveyed. There wasn’t any fault.”
Templin glared at him. Before he could speak, though, a new voice said tentatively, “Mr. Templin? Message from the radio room.” It was another miner holding a sheet of thin paper in his gauntleted hand. Templin took the flimsy from him and held it up to his faceplate. In the light of the helmet lamp he read:
Pilot Rocket Silvanus registry Joseph Olcott reported accident as required by Regulations. Report stated your Rocket not seen until collision almost inevitable then evasive action taken but impossible to avoid rocket exhaust striking your ship. Pilot reprimanded and cautioned. Signed: Stephens, HQ Lunadmin Tycho Crater.
Templin grinned leanly and passed the radio from Lunar Administration over to Jim Culver. “I squawked to Tycho about our little brush with Olcott,” he explained.
Culver read it quickly and his face darkened with anger. Templin said over the inter-suit radio: “Don’t get excited, Culver—I didn’t expect anything better. After all, it stood to reason that Olcott would report it as an accident. He had to, in case we survived. At least, now we know where we stand.” He glanced around the mine gallery, then frowned again. “I’ve seen enough,” he said abruptly. “Let’s go upstairs again.”
Culver nodded and they walked back to the waiting monorail ore car. They stepped in, pressed the release button and the tiny wheels spun round. The car picked up speed rapidly; half a minute later it slowed and stopped at the entrance to the shaft. They crossed an open space, then walked into the air lock of the pressurized structure where Terralune’s miners lived.
IN THE office Templin stripped off his pressure suit and immediately grabbed for one of his cigarettes. Culver more slowly followed his example, then sat down facing Templin. “You’ve seen the picture now, Temp,” he said. “Do you have any ideas on what we can do?”
Templin grimaced. “In a negative sort of way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, up to a little while ago I had a pretty definite idea that it was Joe Olcott who was causing all our trouble. That, I figured, I could handle—in fact, you might say I was sort of looking forward to it. But, although Olcott is a rich and powerful man and all that, I don’t see how he can cause earthquakes.”
Culver nodded. “That’s it,” he said soberly. “That’s not the first time it’s happened, either. We’ve had other kinds of trouble—broken machinery, mistakes in judgement, that sort of thing. Like you, I thought Olcott might be behind it. But—well, good Lord, Temp. The Moon is an old, old planet. There isn’t even any internal heat any more—it’s all cooled off, and you’d think that its crust would have finally settled by this time. And yet… earthquakes keep on happening. Five of them so far.”
Templin grunted and chucked away his cigarette. “Get the straw-bosses in here,” he said. “Let’s have ourselves a conference; maybe somebody will come up with an idea.”