The Planet Strappers Part 12

Joe Kuzak's answering tone almost had a shrug in it. "Don't jinx our luck, twin brother," he said. "For that matter, how long will _we_ last...? Mex, did you toss Tiflin back his shiv?"

"A couple of hours ago," Ramos answered mildly.

Everybody was looking down at the Moon, whose crater-pocked ugliness and beauty was spa.r.s.ely dotted with the blue spots of stellene domes, many of them housing embryo enterprises that were trying to beat the blastoff cost of necessities brought from Earth, and to supply s.p.a.cemen and colonists with their needs, cheaply.

The nine fragile rings were soon in orbit. One worker-recruiting rocket and several trader-rockets--much less powerful than those needed to achieve orbit around Earth--because lunar gravity was only one-sixth of the terrestrial--were floating in their midst. On the Moon it had of course been known that a fresh Bunch was on the way. Even telescopes could have spotted them farther off than the distance of their 240,000 mile leap.

Frank Nelsen's tongue tasted of bra.s.sy doubt. He didn't know where he'd be, or what luck, good or bad, he might run into, within the next hour.

The Kuzaks were palavering with the occupants of two heavily-loaded trader rockets. "Sure we'll buy--if the price is right," Art was saying.

"Flasks of water and oxygen, medicines, rolls of stellene. Spare parts for Archies, ionics, air-restorers. Food, clothes--anything we can sell, ourselves..."

The Kuzaks must have at least a few thousand dollars, which they had probably managed to borrow when they had gone home to Pennsylvania to say goodbye.

Out here, free of the grip of any large sphere, there was hardly a limit to the load which their ionics could eventually accelerate sufficiently to travel tremendous distances. Streamlining, in the vacuum, of course wasn't necessary, either.

Now a small, sharp-featured man in an Archie, drifted close to Ramos and Frank, as they floated near their bubbs. "h.e.l.lo, Ramos, h.e.l.lo, Nelsen,"

he said. "Yes--we know your names. We investigate, beforehand, down on terra firma. We even have people to snap photographs--often you don't even notice. We like guys with talent who get out here by their own efforts. Shows they got guts--seriousness! But now you've arrived. We are Lunar Projects Placement. We need mechanics, process technicians, administrative personnel--anything you can name, almost. Any bright lad with drive enough to learn fast, suits us fine. Five hundred bucks an Earth-week, to start, meals and lodging thrown in. Quit any time you want. Plenty of different working sites. Mines, refineries, factories, construction..."

"Serenitatis Base?" Ramos asked almost too quickly, Frank thought. And he sounded curiously serious. Was this the Ramos who should be going a lot farther than the Moon, anyway?

"h.e.l.l, yes, fella!" said the job scout.

"Then I'll sign."

"Excellent... You, too, guy?" The scout was looking at Frank. "And your other friends?"

"I'm thinking about it," Frank answered cagily. "Some of them aren't stopping on the Moon, as you can see."

Mitch Storey was lashing a few flasks of oxygen and water to the rim of his bubb, being careful to s.p.a.ce them evenly for static balance. He didn't have the money to buy much more, even here.

The Kuzaks were preparing two huge bundles of supplies, which they intended to tow. Reynolds was also loading up a few things, with Two-and-Two helping him.

"I'm all set, Frank!" Two-and-Two shouted. "I'm going along with Charlie, maybe to crash the Venus exploration party!"

"Good!" Frank shouted back, glad that this large, unsure person had found himself a leader.

Now he looked at Gimp Hines, riding the spinning rim of his ring with his good and bad leg dangling, an expectant, quizzical, half-worried look on his freckled face.

But Dave Lester was more pathetic. He had stopped the rotation of his bubb. He looked down first at the pitted, jagged face of the Moon, with an expression in which rapture and terror may have been mingled, glanced with the hope of desperation toward the job scout, and then distractedly continued dismantling the rigging of his vehicle, as if to repack it in the blastoff drum for a landing.

"Hey--hold on, Les!" Two-and-Two shouted. "You gotta know where you're going, first!"

"Make up your mind, Nelsen," said the job scout, getting impatient. "We handle just about everything lunar--except in the Tovie areas. Without us, you're just a lost, fresh punk!"

But another man had approached from another lunar GO rocket, which had just appeared. He had a thin intellectual face, dark eyes, trap mouth, white hair, soft speech that was almost shy.

"I'm Xavier Rodan," he said. "I search out my own employees. I do minerals survey--for gypsum, bauxite--anything. And site survey, for factories and other future developments. I also have connections with the Selenographic Inst.i.tute of the University of Chicago. It is all interesting work, but in a rather remote region, I'm afraid--the far side of the Moon. And I can pay only three hundred a week. Of course you can resign whenever you wish. Perhaps you'd be interested--Mr. Nelsen, is it?"

Frank had an impulse to jump at the chance--though there was a warning coming to him from somewhere. But how could you ever know? You would always have to go down to that devils' wilderness to find out.

"I'll try it, Mr. Rodan," he said.

"Selenography--that's one of my favorite subjects, sir!" David Lester burst out, making a gingerly leap across the horrible void of spherical sky--stars in all directions except where the Moon's bulk hung. "Could I--too?" His trembling mouth looked desperate.

"Very well, boy," Rodan said at last. "A hundred dollars for a week's work period."

Frank was glad that Lester had a place to go--and furious that he would probably have to nursemaid him, after all.

Gimp Hines kept riding the rim of his ring like a merry-go-round, his face trying to show casual humor and indifference over ruefulness and scare. "n.o.body wants me," he said cheerfully. "It's just prejudice and poor imagination. Well--I don't think I'll even try to prove how good I am. Of course I could shoot for the asteroids. But I'd like to look around Serenitatis Base--some, anyway. Will fifty bucks get me and my rig down?"

"Talk to our pilot, Lame Fella," said the job scout. "But you must be suicidal nuts to be around here at all."

The others leapt to help Nelsen, Ramos, Gimp and Lester strip and pack their gear. Ramos' and Gimp's drums were loaded into the job scout's rocket. Nelsen's and Lester's went into Rodan's.

Gloved hands clasped gloved hands all around. The Bunch, the Planet Strappers, were breaking up.

"So long, you characters--see you around," said Art Kuzak. "It won't be ten years, before you all wind up in the Belt."

"Bring back the Mystery of Mars, Mitch!" Frank was saying.

"When you get finished Mooning, come to Venus, Lover Lad," Reynolds told Ramos. "But good luck!"

"Jeez--I'm gonna get sentimental," Two-and-Two moaned. "Luck everybody.

Come on, Charlie--let's roll! I don't want to s...o...b..r!"

"I'll catch up with you all--watch!" Gimp promised.

"So long, Frank..."

"Yeah--over the Milky Way, Frankie!"

"_Hasta luego_, Gang." This was all Ramos, the big mouth, had to say. He wasn't glum, exactly. But he was sort of preoccupied and impatient.

The five remaining rings--a wonderful sight, Frank thought--began to move out of orbit. Ships with sails set for far ports. No--mere ships of the sea were nothing, anymore. But would all of the Bunch survive?

Charlie Reynolds, the cool one, the most likely to succeed, waved jauntily and carelessly from his rotating, accelerating ring.

Two-and-Two wagged both arms stiffly from his.

Mitch Storey's bubb, lightest loaded, was jumping ahead. But you could hear him playing _Old Man River_ on his mouth organ, inside his helmet.

The Kuzaks' bubbs, towing ma.s.sive loads, were accelerating slowest, with the ex-gridiron twins riding the rigging. But their rings would dwindle to star specks before long, too.

The job scout's rocket, carrying Ramos and Gimp, began to flame for a landing at Serene.

In the airtight cabin of Xavier Rodan's vehicle, Frank Nelsen and David Lester had read and signed their contracts and had received their copies.

Rodan didn't smile. "Now we'll go down and have a look at the place I'm investigating," he said.