Tongues Of The Moon Part 14

The ship's port was open. Broward stepped inside; Quiroga followed.

"You know how to handle the controls?" the Moonman said. "They're unfamiliar to me."

The lieutenant examined the control panel, shook his head, and said, "This one can't be activated unless you have the key. Guess who has that"

"Can't you rewire it? Or isn't there time?"

"Even if there were, I wouldn't try it," Quiroga said. "I imagine that Howards has this rigged to explode if anybody tampers much with it."

"I don't know. He wouldn't think anybody would have access to it Which reminds me. How do you get out of here?"

They examined the walls. Undoubtedly, some section of it must open to an air-lock and beyond that to the surface. The rock around them must be part of a hill or cliff, and it must be out of sight of the domes above Osorno.

But there was nothing within to indicate the exit. No slightest crack.

"It's probable," said Quiroga, "that Howards must activate the mechanisms that open this with a radio or laser frequency. He might carry the emitter with him, or it might be part of the ship. More likely the latter, since he could open it from the surface easier if the emitter were built into the "So," said Broward, "we're where we were before. Mean-He, Howards must have found out what happened on the rooftop. We can expect some sort of a move against us at any moment."

He went from the control cabin into the rear. There was a tiny washroom, s.p.a.ces in the corridor for bunks, and, beyond, a storage room. At the rear wall of this, he opened a door and looked into the compartment containing the motor, generator, fuelpile, and electronic equipment. There was also a box that looked like a tool box.

Gingerly, for he feared b.o.o.by-traps, he stepped through the door and then snapped up the catch that held the cover. A minute later, he was back in the control cabin with a hammer, several screwdrivers, pliers, tape, and two cold chisels.

Quiroga said, "You know that we'll probably set off an alarm or some kind of b.o.o.by trap."

Broward shrugged. "Too bad. But there's nothing else to do."

"You get outside the ship," the Argentinean said. "I'm expendable. But if you die, everybody dies."

"One man only'll take too much time. Come on. No argument now."

"No," Quiroga said firmly. "Somebody has to guard the shaft. They'll be coming up with gravpaks and quickly."

"All right," said Broward. He turned and walked out of the ship to the elevator. He got on the cage and started it downwards. Halfway down the shaft, at a point above the rooftop entrance, he halted the cage. Then he soared back up by means of his gravpak.

Quiroga was startled when he returned. Broward explained. "Maybe they can get enough men with paks underneath it to drive it back up. There are a lot of maybe's. There's work to do, and I'm helping with it."

They hammered furiously and then used the screwdrivers and a little crowbar to pry the lock mechanism out.

Each expected something drastic to happen; both were sweating far more than the work alone could account for.

Then, the lock was out, and the wires connected to it were exposed. Quiroga began to make the necessary connections, but Broward did not wait for him to finish. He had been more worried about attack from the shaft than he had shown.

He looked down the rock walls. The light glared on the cage; it was moving upwards slowly. Smiling grimly, he rose over the hole and plunged downward. On reaching the cage, he turned the gravpak controls to give him half-weight. The barrel of his burper went over the edge at an angle so that the bullets would strike below the cage. He pressed the trigger, and the shaft became a deafening h.e.l.l. Not so deafening that he could not hear the screams of the men below. Although they would have received no direct hits from the bullets themselves, they were undoubtedly wounded by fragments of stone chipped off the walls and sent flying.

He quit firing and looked over the edge through the s.p.a.ce between the cage and the shaft. Below him, light flooded through the opened rooftop door. Men flew through it, out of the shaft and onto the top of the building. Some were still screaming.

He fired at an Angel halfway through the door, saw the body blow apart, and fired at the man behind it. That man fell fast because the bullets had destroyed his gravpak.

Their next move would be to bring in a mobile laser and burn the elevator down. Before that happened, the ship must be activated. He rose, leaving the elevator where it was, and returned to Quiroga.

The lieutenant said, "I was worried. I heard the shots."

"Just a little holding action. It won't keep long. Any luck?"

"It isn't trapped. Howards must not have thought that anybody would find it. We're ready to go. See that b.u.t.ton there? I think it's the emitter control. Anyway, it's the only one whose function I don't know."

"Press it."

Quiroga shut the port of the ship first, then depressed the b.u.t.ton. Slowly, a section of wall in front of the ship slid aside. Where it had been was a sheet of plastic. Quiroga kept his finger on the b.u.t.ton, and the sheet slid in behind the rock section to reveal a tunnel. At its end was another plastic sheet.

Quiroga lifted the vessel slowly and piloted it into the On its clearing the entrance, the plastic sheet slid outof the wall. They waited until the exterior sensory of the ship indicated that the air had been pumped out of the tunnel.

Again, Quiroga pressed the b.u.t.ton. The sheet before them disappeared into the wall, then the rock behind it slid aside.

They were looking out on early morning Mars.

A yellowish-red plain stretched out to the horizon. Nothing moved on it, for Mars had no surface life, animal or vegetable. Far off to the left was a thin cloud of yellowish dust Though it was day, the sky was a blackblue, the brighter stars filtered through the weak light of the small sun. Around the hill, they knew, would be the three big domes on top of Osorno.

'Take her out," Broward said, "Just far enough to turn her around. Then use the emitter to open the outer ports."

"Dios mio! Are you crazy?"

"I know exactly what I'm doing," Broward replied. Quiroga shrugged, rolled his eyes upwards, and obeyed. In a few seconds, the false section of the hill and the plastic gate behind it had moved into the rock.

'Take her into the tunnel. But only halfway. I don't want the outer ports closing."

The Argentinean said something under his breath, but he drove the ship to the spot indicated.

"This ship has a burner laser," Broward said. "Use it" Quiroga placed his hand over his face and groaned, "Stupid! Now I see what you mean to do. But..."

"You have a better idea?" said Broward. "G.o.d help me, no."

Quiroga activated the laser, and a pencil-thin white beam shot out of the nose of the craft and bore through the plastic. Then, Quiroga described a large circle with the beam. The plastic resisted only breifly, bubbled, then disappeared. Quiroga shut the beam off, moved the ship forward swiftly and b.u.mped into the center of the described circle. While the ship was backing up to its original position, the large disc of plastic fell out of the sheet and onto the rock floor.

The laser struck again. This time, the thick granite section held out longer. But there was air pushing against it from the other side. Suddenly, the slab of rock, marked by a thin dark line where the laser had cut, began to move outwards. "Back! Back!" said Broward loudly, but Quiroga had already touched the controls. The ship shot out of the tunnel at a velocity that would have crushed the two of them if they had not been in stasis.

They went back a long ways, and they needed the distance, for the granite disc came out of the mouth of the tunnel like a bullet out of the muzzle of a gun. It did not fly far after that but, when it hit the surface of the hill on its edge, it turned over once. Then, instead of falling flat, it landed on its opposite edge and began rolling down the slope like the hoop of a giant child.

The two men did not watch it run its course. They were too fascinated, and shocked, though they had expected it, at what followed the disc. A man, upside down, flew out of the tunnel. Another came behind him, then the water tank and the provisions chest. Two men, holding on to each other. A fifth Angel. Then, the elevator cage.

Broward and Quiroga could not see it, but they could imagine the roar of the thick air escaping from Osorno through the cave and the shaft that led down to Howards' house and the plaza on the third level. Dust blew up from the hill, a yellow-red cloud that obscured the tunnel. Abruptly, a door soared out from the tunnel and flopped on the plain. The door at the entrance to the house at the bottom of the shaft?

Quiroga spoke with a choking voice. "It must be h.e.l.l down there. The people fighting to get out of the plaza before the barriers come down in the tunnels at each end and seal them off. But they can't do anything but roll before the great wind until they are smashed against a wall and held there. Or slide along until the wind carries them through the doors and broken windows into the house and maybe even up the shaft"

He put his hands over his face. "I do not weep for Howards and his men, because they deserve to die. But there are innocent people in that plaza. Women and children, Mier's daughter..."

Broward put his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder. "I am sorry, deeply sorry. What else can I say? Now, would you take the ship back in? We'll close the outer ports; they should be strong enough to take the wind. Once they're closed, your people can start pumping air back into the plaza.

"And buck up. You've got a lot of explaining to do and a lot of organizing. You're not going to get much sleep. Neither will I. I have to get back to Deimos. But I'll be coming back."

Quiroga stood up, tears running down his face, and said, "I'll put on my suit"

Broward did not reply. He was so tired that he wanted to do nothing but sleep.

Four Mars days later, he left the red planet again, headed this time for the Moon. Quiroga, spokesman for the Martians, sat beside him. Below them, on the dwindling reddish ball, the newly formed government was trying to determine the course of its society. After the outbreak against the more devoted followers of Howards, most of whom had been killed by those eager for revenge as soon as the news of El Macho's death was known, a temporary government had been set up.

Labastida, an admiral, and Learmont, one-time mayor of Osorno, had been released from the prison where Howards had recently placed them. After hearing Broward's story, they had agreed that he should return to the Moon.

He was to attempt to arrange for a truce. Eventually, they hoped, a treaty would be made. Peace could be established, and the survivors could get down to the serious and harsh business of struggling for a living and of hewing out of the subarean and sublunarian rock Lebensraum for themselves and their descendants.

Broward had sent the bomb in an orbit towards the sun. It was traveling at top speed towards its fiery tomb; nothing could divert or recall it Now, Quiroga was with him as amba.s.sador. Since he alone had any acquaintance with the Moonman, and since he had several important relatives, he had gotten the job.The two did the things that a man must do to keep from going mad during the long voyage in cramped quarters. However, for Broward, the return was not as bad as the original trip. He had someone to talk to.

Quiroga said, "This Athenian ideology or philosophy you mentioned? What is it?"

Broward smiled and said, "Once, I would have been very eager to explain it to you. I'd have talked for hours on end and only reluctantly dropped the subject. But not now."

"But what is it?"

"Briefly, it was the idea of setting up human government and society so that all was decentralized. Well, not everything. With the huge and crowded population Earth had, there were many things that could only be handled by a terrestrial-wide government.

"But I wanted society cut into the minimum segments possible. Each segment would be composed of, say, five hundred men and women. These would govern all local affairs, and the governing would be conducted on a basis like that which ancient Athens had.

"This would require, of course, a politically educated and zealous electorate. I wasn't naive enough to think that people would naturally be so. However, the idea was that the children would be educated to be so, conditioned, as it were."

"And who would enforce this conditioning, this education?"

"There you are. The weak point. Or one of them. Only a powerful central government could make this come about And such a government is not likely to bring about its own demise wilfully. In a way, I had the same idea as Marx himself. That is, he thought the state would wither away after a world government was established and the proletariat ruled. That idea, though still paid lip service to by our leaders and taught in school, had been abandoned in practice. Only the most diehard Marxist subscribed to it.

"Unconsciously, I must have been affected by what my teachers offered me, even though not many of them believed it. Long after I had conceived the Athenian ideology, I realized my error. However, by then, I had formed my Athenian Underground. It was absurd to think that the authorities didn't know of it They did, but they allowed me to go unharmed, even to be given a place of trust on the Moon. Why? I don't know for sure. Perhaps, they were using me to detect other potential subversives. At any time they wanted to, they could have brought the entire movement, which was small, anyway, to its knees by using the bonephones.

"Later, I realized this, too. But it was too late to back out. So, I went ahead as if I had not been detected. If the authorities were willing to let me play my little game, I was willing. Though I lost much of my enthusiasm.

"Then, when most of Earth was killed, and human society was suddenly restricted, I began thinking again.

Now, Athenianism could work. And the children would be so few in numbers, they could easily be educated. They would grow up thinking that the Athenian system of democracy was the best way for men to govern themselves. All would be free, within necessary limits, of course. The old would be kicked out; the new, based on rationality and logic, would come in."

He fell silent for a while. Quiroga shifted around in his seat, then said, "And now?"

Broward shrugged, and said, "I think I've learned. Man is only logical when he is working with machines or mathematics or in the laboratory. And not always then. Otherwise, he behaves as custom demands. Oh, there are men who don't, and enough of these at one time influence society to change its customs, though slowly. Or technological changes influence them to adopt new customs. But these changes are not made systematically or after much thought They just come about.

"The born conservative resists them; the born liberal adopts them. Neither knows quite why he resists or adopts, though he gives rational reasons for his conduct Then, they die, and the same process goes on with their sons and their sons' sons. And so it goes."

"You've given up?"

"No. I can't. Even realizing the truth, I can't. Besides, now that mankind is so few, one man's feelings and ideas may wield great power. But I'm not going to try to change society overnight. I'll do my best to introduce what I think are good ideas. If they're rejected, I won't kill or jail people for it."

"This Scone?" Quiroga said. "He will kill. He will kill you because you disobeyed him and threw away his chance for victory."

"Scone is a man like Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler. He has no business existing in this world. He'd like to keep the old order, with himself as top dog, of course. He's reactionary down to his bones, yet he's a great fighter, a soldier who won't stop until his enemy is dead or he's dead. So..."

He continued, "I've been thinking about a plan to inform the people on the Moon of what's happened without Scone being able to repress the news. I'm also informing them about the surplus of women on Mars and your people's offer to send volunteer women to the Moon to balance out the lack there. That's a very strong point. If you'll excuse me, I'll get to work on that now."

He spent several hours in recording, wiping out, rerecording. Finally, he was satisfied. Then, for the relay satellite had been contacted a little while before, he transmitted. Over and over again.

"And what do you expect to happen?" said Quiroga. He had been listening quietly but with some puzzlement while Broward talked into the mike.

"This message will be taped at the Moon receiving station," he answered. "The operator will also listen in. He won't understand a word of it, of course, because it's in Navaho. He won't even know what language it is. There'll be an uproar; he'll call in Scone. Scone will summon Dahlquist, because he's the man most likely to understand an exotic language. Dahlquist will listen, and the first thing he'll hear will be my request that he not tell Scone the truth."That's one of the weak points in my plan. If Dahlquist won't go along, then we're done for. But I know him; I'm banking on him. If he does as I say, he'll tell Scone that I've lost the codebook and am using Navaho for communication. It's just as good as any code.

"What he won't tell Scone-I hope-is that Mars is not bombed and that it's suing for peace. He'll tell those he can trust, and he'll tell Ingrid. At least she'll know I'm coming back and that she can hope. After that, well..."

"Very clever," the Martian said. "But this Scone is also very clever, crafty as a wolf, and he has great power.

He may not believe what this Dahlquist tells him."

"He probably won't. But he surely won't dare to use force on the old Swede. Dahlquist is a very respected and much loved man."

"What if Scone decides not to take a chance but sends a ship to intercept and destroy us before we get there? His most faithful henchmen would do that for him, wouldn't they? And if nothing was said about it, everybody on the Moon would think you had had some accident. Ships disappear all the time, you know, and nothing is ever heard of them again."

"That's a chance we'll have to take," Broward said. "I doubt if Scone would do that. Why should he? He thinks that everything he's wanted has come about He can easily deal with me once I land-he thinks."

Nevertheless, Broward was very uneasy after this. He kept expecting the alarms of the ship to sound out, to indicate that a UFO had been picked up by the radar. He did some calculation. If Scone sent a ship after him several hours after he'd received the message, then it should be within radar area in about five hours from now.

He sat tensely until the five hours had pa.s.sed. Still, he did not relax. The interceptors might have left later. Six hours, seven, eight, pa.s.sed. He sighed with relief. Although it was still possible that a ship might appear, the possibility dwindled the closer the scout came to the Moon. Scone would not want the lunar detectors to witness the explosion that would result if the interceptor blew him up with a small atomic bomb.

But there was the very good probability that the Moon no longer had any missiles. The last battle with the Axe fleet could have expended them, since there were few when the fight started. Mars itself had no more than three left If that were the case, the interceptor would use beams. Well, if he detected a UFO coming at him, and he'd do so before it was within a half-million mile range, he'd take evasive action. This would not be like the evasive action taken by airplanes during the old wars on Earth. Even though the occupants of s.p.a.ceships were not affected by sudden angles of flight or decelerations or accelerations, the ships had their limits. No, he would simply place the ship in a new orbit shortly before it came within effective range of the lasers. At the speed the interceptor would be going, it could not turn around in time to catch him before he had reached the Moon. Unless, of course, the interceptors were lucky and caught him with a wild swing of the beams.

Hours pa.s.sed, and no strange ship appeared ahead of him. So, Scone did not intend to destroy him before he reached home base. Probably, so egotistical was Scone, he did not think it necessary. He had used Broward for his own purposes despite Broward's feeling, and he would now dispose of him when and as he wished.

Broward began worrying about another thing. Why hadn't Scone answered his message?

He told Quiroga this latest thought, and the Martian said, "Why should he?"

Two more hours were rounded off on the ship's chronometer. Then, a message did come. But it was only a routine acknowledgment of Broward's approach and directions on where to land.

There were still six hours to go to landing time. Since he was now close enough to lock in and to use laser channels for communication, and the need for code was gone, he asked the operator the news.

"Sorry, Captain," replied the operator. "Just follow orders." Angry, frustrated, Broward did not make another attempt Even seeing the great globe of earth and the smaller one of its satellite ever expanding before him did not make him feel any better. What was going on down there?

At the designated time, the scout landed before the entrance lock to the port of Clavius. This was a new tube that had been extended from the ruins of the old base. Near it loomed the gigantic cigar-shaped Zemlya. Several men in suits were working on the stern of the vessel. Occasionally, one of them ventured from the shadows into the sunlit areas to work a little while before retreating. Even now, the problems of keeping a suit cool in the full heat of the sun had not been solved. But the repairs on the Zemlya seemed to have been all but completed. Even as Broward and Quiroga left their craft, the figures dropped off the scaffolding and descended slowly to the surface. They then walked to a port near the stern and entered.

Broward and Quiroga were also in suits, since the lock was not fitted for direct attachment to a ship and a force field was not being generated due to lack of power. Quiroga, speaking through his radio, said, "I feel very strange. And, though I should not admit it, I am afraid. It is like entering a cave of wolves."

"Some of those wolves are my friends," Broward said. "And they want peace as much as you do, I'm sure.

Don't worry. Whatever happens, I won't desert you. You have my word."

He pressed the b.u.t.ton that opened the lock from the outside, after looking through the transparent shield to make sure that no one was within. Normally, the locks had features built within them to ensure that they could not be opened unless it was safe for those inside the lock. But materials were so scarce now, and the lock had been built so swiftly, that Broward was not sure that regular precautions had been taken.

The lock was empty. The port swung open; they stepped inside; the port closed. Air soon filled the little chamber, and the two then opened the inner port and went down a narrow shaft. There was no ladder; they had to fall down the approximately 3.1 meters.