Robert Heinlein's Expanded Universe 2 Read online

  Much later Speedy’s voice called out, “Hard ground!” Shortly the column reached it and stopped to remove skis. Bruce switched off his radio and touched his helmet to Sam’s.

  “What was that back where the Skipper yelled at me?”

  “That? That was a morning glory. They’re poison!”

  “A ‘morning glory’?”

  “Sort of a sink hole. If you get on the slope, you never get out. Crumbles out from under you and you wind up buried in the bottom. There you stay—until your air gives out. Lot of prospectors die that way. They go out alone and are likely to come back in the dark.”

  “How do you know what happens if they go out alone?”

  “Suppose you saw tracks leading up to one and no tracks going away?”

  “Oh!” Bruce felt silly.

  The troop swung into a lope; slowly the hills drew closer and loomed high into the sky. Mr. Andrews called a halt. “Camp,” he said. “Sam, spot the shelter west of that outcropping. Bruce, watch what Sam does.”

  The shelter was an airtight tent, framed by a half cylinder of woven heavy wire. The frame came in sections. The Scoutmaster’s huge pack was the air bag.

  The skeleton was erected over a ground frame, anchored at corners and over which was spread an asbestos pad. The curved roof and wall sections followed. Sam tested joints with a wrench, then ordered the air bag unrolled. The air lock, a steel drum, was locked into the frame and gasketed to the bag. Meanwhile, two Scouts were rigging a Sun shade.

  Five boys crawled inside and stood up, arms stretched high. The others passed in all the duffel except skis and poles. Mr. Andrews was last in and closed the air lock. The metal frame blocked radio communication; Sam plugged a phone connection from the lock to his helmet. “Testing,” he said.

  Bruce could hear the answer, relayed through Sam’s radio. “Ready to inflate.”

  “Okay.” The bag surged up, filling the frame. Sam said, “You go on, Bruce. There’s nothing left but to adjust the shade.”

  “I’d better watch.”

  “Okay.” The shade was a flimsy Venetian blind, stretched over the shelter. Sam half-opened the slats. “It’s cold inside,” he commented, “from expanding gas. But it warms up fast.” Presently, coached by phone, he closed them a bit. “Go inside,” he urged Bruce. “It may be half an hour before I get the temperature steady.”

  “Maybe I should,” admitted Bruce. “I feel dizzy.”

  Sam studied him. “Too hot?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You’ve held still in the Sun too long. Doesn’t give the air a chance to circulate. Here.” Sam opened Bruce’s supply valve wider; “Go inside.”

  Gratefully, Bruce complied.

  As he backed in, and straightened up, two boys grabbed him. They closed his valves, unlocked his helmet, and peeled off his suit. The suit traveled from hand to hand and was racked. Bruce looked around.

  Daylamps were strung from the air lock to a curtain at the far end that shut off the sanitary unit. Near this curtain suits and helmets were racked. Scouts were lounging on both sides of the long room. Near the entrance a Scout was on watch at the air conditioner, a blood-oxygen indicator clipped to his ear. Nearby, Mr. Andrews phoned temperature changes to Sam. In the middle of the room Chubby had set up his commissary. He waved. “Hi, Bruce! Siddown—chow in two shakes.”

  Two Scouts made room for Bruce and he sat. One of them said, “Y’ever been at Yale?” Bruce had not. “That’s where I’m going,” the Scout confided. “My brother’s there now.” Bruce began to feel at home.

  When Sam came in Chubby served chow, beef stew, steaming and fragrant, packaged rolls, and bricks of peach ice cream. Bruce decided that Moon Scouts had it soft. After supper, the Bugler got out his harmonica and played. Bruce leaned back, feeling pleasantly drowsy.

  * * *

  “Hollifield!” Bruce snapped awake. “Let’s try you on first aid.”

  For thirty minutes Bruce demonstrated air tourniquets and emergency suit patches, artificial respiration for a man in a space suit, what to do for Sun stroke, for anoxia, for fractures. “That’ll do,” the Scoutmaster concluded. “One thing: What do you do if a man cracks his helmet?”

  Bruce was puzzled. “Why,” he blurted, “you bury him.”

  “Check,” the Scoutmaster agreed. “So be careful. Okay, sports—six hours of sleep. Sam, set the watch.”

  Sam assigned six boys, including himself. Bruce asked, “Shouldn’t I take a watch?”

  Mr. Andrews intervened. “No. And take yourself off, Sam. You’ll take Bruce on his two-man hike tomorrow; you’ll need your sleep.”

  “Okay, Skipper.” He added to Bruce, “There’s nothing to it. I’ll show you.” The Scout on duty watched several instruments, but, as with suits, the important one was the blood-oxygen reading. Stale air was passed through a calcium oxide bath, which precipitated carbon dioxide as calcium carbonate. The purified air continued through dry sodium hydroxide, removing water vapor.

  “The kid on watch makes sure the oxygen replacement is okay,” Sam went on. “If anything went wrong, he’d wake us and we’d scramble into suits.”

  Mr. Andrews shooed them to bed. By the time Bruce had taken his turn at the sanitary unit and found a place to lie down, the harmonica was sobbing: “Day is done.… Gone the Sun …”

  It seemed odd to hear Taps when the Sun was still overhead. They couldn’t wait a week for sundown, of course. These colonials kept funny hours … bed at what amounted to early evening, up at one in the morning. He’d ask Sam. Sam wasn’t a bad guy—a little bit know-it-all. Odd to sleep on a bare floor, too—not that it mattered with low gravity. He was still pondering it when his ears were assaulted by Reveille, played on the harmonica.

  Breakfast was scrambled eggs, cooked on the spot. Camp was struck, and the troop was moving in less than an hour. They headed for Base Camp at a lope.

  The way wound through passes, skirted craters. They had covered thirty miles and Bruce was getting hungry when the pathfinder called, “Heel and toe!” They converged on an air lock, set in a hillside.

  Base Camp had not the slick finish of Luna City, being rough caverns sealed to airtightness, but each troop had its own well-equipped troop room. Air was renewed by hydroponic garden, like Luna City; there was a Sun power plant and accumulators to last through the long, cold nights.

  Bruce hurried through lunch; he was eager to start his two-man hike. They outfitted as before, except that reserve air and water replaced packaged grub. Sam fitted a spring-fed clip of hiking rations into the collar of Bruce’s suit.

  The Scoutmaster inspected them at the lock. “Where to, Sam?”

  “We’ll head southeast. I’ll blaze it.”

  “Hmm—rough country. Well; back by midnight, and stay out of caves.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Outside Sam sighed, “Whew! I thought he was going to say not to climb.”

  “We’re going to?”

  “Sure. You can, can’t you?”

  “Got my Alpine badge.”

  “I’ll do the hard part, anyhow. Let’s go.”

  Sam led out of the hills and across a baked plain. He hit an eight-mile gait, increased it to a twelve-miler. Bruce swung along, enjoying it. “Swell of you to do this, Sam.”

  “Nuts. If I weren’t here, I’d be helping to seal the gymnasium.”

  “Just the same, I need this hike for my Mooncraft badge.”

  Sam let several strides pass. “Look, Bruce—you don’t really expect to make Lunar Eagle?”

  “Why not? I’ve got my optional badges. There are only four required ones that are terribly different: camping, Mooncraft, pathfinding, and pioneering. I’ve studied like the dickens and now I’m getting experience.”

  “I don’t doubt you’ve studied. But the Review Board are tough eggs. You’ve got to be a real Moon hand to get by.”

  “They won’t pass a Scout from Earth?”

  “Put it this way. The badges you need
add up to one thing, Mooncraft. The examiners are old Moon hands; you won’t get by with book answers. They’ll know how long you’ve been here and they’ll know you don’t know enough.”

  Bruce thought about it. “It’s not fair!”

  Sam snorted. “Mooncraft isn’t a game; it’s the real thing. ‘Did you stay alive?’ If you make a mistake, you flunk—and they bury you.”

  Bruce had no answer.

  Presently they came to hills; Sam stopped and called Base Camp. “Parsons and Hollifield, Troop One—please take a bearing.”

  Shortly Base replied, “One one eight. What’s your mark?”

  “Cairn with a note.”

  “Roger.”

  Sam piled up stones, then wrote date, time, and their names on paper torn from a pad in his pouch, and laid it on top. “Now we start up.”

  The way was rough and unpredictable; this canyon had never been a watercourse. Several times Sam stretched a line before he would let Bruce follow. At intervals he blazed the rock with his hammer. They came to an impasse, five hundred feet of rock, the first hundred of which was vertical and smooth.

  Bruce stared. “We’re going up that?”

  “Sure. Watch your Uncle Samuel.” A pillar thrust up above the vertical pitch. Sam clipped two lines together and began casting the bight up toward it. Twice he missed and the line floated down. At last it went over.

  Sam drove a piton into the wall, off to one side, clipped a snap ring to it, and snapped on the line. He had Bruce join him in a straight pull on the free end to test the piton. Bruce then anchored to the snap ring with a rope strap; Sam started to climb.

  Thirty feet up, he made fast to the line with his legs and drove another piton; to this he fastened a safety line. Twice more he did this. He reached the pillar and called, “Off belay!”

  Bruce unlinked the line; it snaked up the cliff. Presently Sam shouted, “On belay!”

  Bruce answered, “Testing,” and tried unsuccessfully to jerk down the line Sam had lowered.

  “Climb,” ordered Sam.

  “Climbing.” One-sixth gravity, Bruce decided, was a mountaineer’s heaven. He paused on the way up only to unsnap the safety line.

  Bruce wanted to “leapfrog” up the remaining pitches, but Sam insisted on leading. Bruce was soon glad of it; he found three mighty differences between climbing on Earth and climbing here; the first was low gravity, but the others were disadvantages: balance climbing was awkward in a suit, and chimney climbing, or any involving knees and shoulders, was clumsy and carried danger of tearing the suit.

  They came out on raw, wild upland surrounded by pinnacles, bright against black sky. “Where to?” asked Bruce.

  Sam studied the stars, then pointed southeast. “The photomaps show open country that way.”

  “Suits me.” They trudged away; the country was too rugged to lope. They had been traveling a long time, it seemed to Bruce, when they came out on a higher place from which Earth could be seen. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Almost seventeen,” Sam answered, glancing up.

  “We’re supposed to be back by midnight.”

  “Well,” admitted Sam, “I expected to reach open country before now.”

  “We’re lost?”

  “Certainly not! I’ve blazed it. But I’ve never been here before. I doubt if anyone has.”

  “Suppose we keep on for half an hour, then turn back?”

  “Fair enough.” They continued for at least that; Sam conceded that it was time to turn.

  “Let’s try that next rise,” urged Bruce.

  “Okay.” Sam reached the top first. “Hey, Bruce—we made it!”

  Bruce joined him. “Golly!” Two thousand feet below stretched a dead lunar plain. Mountains rimmed it except to the south. Five miles away two small craters formed a figure eight.

  “I know where we are,” Sam announced. “That pair shows up on the photos. We slide down here, circle south about twenty miles, and back to Base. A cinch—how’s your air?”

  Bruce’s bottle showed fair pressure; Sam’s was down, he having done more work. They changed both bottles and got ready. Sam drove a piton, snapped on a ring, fastened a line to his belt and passed it through the ring. The end of the line he passed between his legs, around a thigh and across his chest, over his shoulder and to his other hand, forming a rappel seat. He began to “walk” down the cliff, feeding slack as needed.

  He reached a shoulder below Bruce. “Off rappel!” he called, and recovered his line by pulling it through the ring.

  Bruce rigged a rappel seat and joined him. The pitches became steeper; thereafter Sam sent Bruce down first, while anchoring him above. They came to a last high sheer drop. Bruce peered over. “Looks like here we roost.”

  “Maybe.” Sam bent all four lines together and measured it. Ten feet of line reached the rubble at the base.

  Bruce said, “It’ll reach, but we have to leave the lines behind us.”

  Sam scowled. “Glass lines cost money; they’re from Earth.”

  “Beats staying here.”

  Sam searched the cliff face, then drove a piton. “I’ll lower you. When you’re halfway, drive two pitons and hang the strap from one. That’ll give me a changeover.”

  “I’m against it,” protested Bruce.

  “If we lost our lines,” Sam argued, “we’ll never hear the last of it. Go ahead.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  Bruce shrugged, snapped on the line and started down.

  Sam stopped him presently. “Halfway. Pick me a nest.”

  Bruce walked the face to the right, but found only smooth wall. He worked back and located a crack. “Here’s a crack,” he reported, “but just one. I shouldn’t drive two pitons in one crack.”

  “Spread ’em apart,” Sam directed. “It’s good rock.”

  Reluctantly, Bruce complied. The spikes went in easily but he wished he could hear the firm ring that meant a piton was biting properly. Finished, he hung the strap. “Lower away!”

  In a couple of minutes he was down and unsnapped the line. “Off belay!” He hurried down the loose rock at the base. When he reached the edge of it he called, “Sam! This plain is soft stuff.”

  “Okay,” Sam acknowledged. “Stand clear.” Bruce moved along the cliff about fifty feet and stopped to bind on skis. Then he shuffled out onto the plain, kick-turned, and looked back. Sam had reached the pitons. He hung, one foot in the strap, the bight in his elbow, and recovered his line. He passed his line through the second piton ring, settled in rappel, and hooked the strap from piton to piton as an anchor. He started down.

  Halfway down the remaining two hundred feet he stopped. “What’s the matter?” called Bruce.

  “It’s reached a shackle,” said Sam, “and the pesky thing won’t feed through the ring. I’ll free it.” He raised himself a foot, then suddenly let what he had gained slip through the ring above.

  To Bruce’s amazement Sam leaned out at an impossible angle. He heard Sam cry “Rock!” before he understood what had happened—the piton had failed.

  Sam fell about four feet, then the other piton, connected by the strap, stopped him. He caught himself, feet spread. But the warning cry had not been pointless; Bruce saw a rock settling straight for Sam’s helmet. Bruce repeated the shout.

  Sam looked up, then jumped straight out from the cliff. The rock passed between him and the wall; Bruce could not tell if it had struck him. Sam swung in, his feet caught the cliff—and again he leaned out crazily. The second piton had let go.

  Sam again shouted, “Rock!” even as he kicked himself away from the cliff.

  Bruce watched him, turning slowly over and over and gathering momentum. It seemed to take Sam forever to fall.

  Then he struck.

  * * *

  Bruce fouled his skis and had to pick himself up. He forced himself to be careful and glided toward the spot.

  Sam’s frantic shove had saved h
im from crashing his helmet into rock. He lay buried in the loose debris, one leg sticking up ridiculously. Bruce felt an hysterical desire to laugh.

  Sam did not stir when Bruce tugged at him. Bruce’s skis got in his way; finally he stood astraddle, hauled Sam out. The boy’s eyes were closed, his features slack, but the suit still had pressure. “Sam,” shouted Bruce, “can you hear me?”

  Sam’s blood-oxygen reading was dangerously in the red; Bruce opened his intake valve wider—but the reading failed to improve. He wanted to turn Sam face down, but he had no way of straightening Sam’s helmeted head, nor would he then be able to watch the blood-oxygen indicator unless he took time to remove the belt. He decided to try artificial respiration with the patient face up. He kicked off skis and belt.

  The pressure in the suit got in his way, nor could he fit his hands satisfactorily to Sam’s ribs. But he kept at it—swing! and one, and two and up! and one, and two and swing!

  The needle began to move. When it was well into the white Bruce paused.

  It stayed in the white.

  Sam’s lips moved but no sound came. Bruce touched helmets. “What is it, Sam?”

  Faintly he heard, “Look out! Rock!”

  Bruce considered what to do next.

  There was little he could do until he got Sam into a pressurized room. The idea, he decided, was to get help—fast!

  Send up a smoke signal? Fire a gun three times? Snap out of it, Bruce! You’re on the Moon now. He wished that someone would happen along in a desert car.

  He would have to try radio. He wasn’t hopeful, as they had heard nothing even from the cliff. Still, he must try—

  He glanced at Sam’s blood-oxygen reading, then climbed the rubble, extended his antenna and tried. “M’aidez!” he called. “Help! Does anybody hear me?” He tried again.

  And again.

  When he saw Sam move he hurried back. Sam was sitting up and feeling his left knee. Bruce touched helmets. “Sam, are you all right?”

  “Huh? This leg won’t work right.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “How do I know? Turn on your radio.”

  “It is on. Yours is busted.”

  “Huh? How’d that happen?”

  “When you fell.”