“Let’s see.” Jake bounced over to the wall of the command center and pulled a blue print out of its wall compartment. I moved alongside him to study the diagram.
He continued, “Unlike our base, this one was—I think—to serve as a warehouse for the others… See. Here’s where the storage complex was to be built. According to this, most of it isn’t there yet. See the dotted lines? That’s the underground storage area. The entrance is… There,” he pointed to a small circle that led to the massive storage area. ” I think I noticed a small dome outside; didn’t recognize what it was.”
“Makes sense since they’d be loading things up outside. And they wouldn’t want to waste air on it either.”
Nikki’s voice sputtered over our headphones, “Hey!”
Both Jake and I spun around with our weapons ready.
“Hold your fire,” Nikki said. She pointed to the computer that she had turned on. “Just found the last entry in the log. Apparently the going-home party got a little out of hand with some syntha-drugs that the crew had made—or brought with them. The crew got pretty frantic… ‘K’ ‘F’
(the letters inscribed in the dome roof) probably belong to one Kerry Franklin who was taken out in chains… Uh… The last entry is, ‘Base abandoned, Tuesday, March—’”
“All right!” Jake said. “Officially abandoned. No one will be coming back.”
“What about the bots? Anything about them?”
“Uh… No. Nothing.”
Jake was again looking at the blue print of the base, “The entrance to the storage area would have to be that little dome we saw off to the side of us when we dropped in.”
“Bet so, let’s check it out. Nikki, want to come along.”
“You better believe it. This place gives me compression blood.”
Chapter 13
From the ground, it was pretty obvious that a lot of equipment must have been transferred from cargo rockets to the underground storage area. The dust showed the trampling of hundreds of feet and claws where men and bots had carried heavy burdens into the warehouse. A few vehicle tracks crisscrossed the trail which stretched from the large landing port over to the small dome that marked the entrance to the underground storage area. The tracks looked like they’d just been made; the lack of atmosphere meant they would remain as they were for centuries unless someone disturbed them.
The white plastic dome over the storage entrance was mostly door. When we released it, it parted along three seams and spread open so that it looked like some type of mechanical bird getting ready to take off.
“Why didn’t they just store everything on the surface?” I asked.
“Earther mentality maybe,” Jake said. “You see it all the time in space. We’ve all grown up with the ravages of the atmosphere. There’re some other reasons, too, though. The temperature’s more constant a few feet into the surface and there’s less damage to equipment during a solar flare.”
“Solar flare!” I said. “I’d forgotten about that. How do we know we’re not being fried right now?”
“See the little button on the wrist of your suit,” Jake pointed to his wrist then switched on his suit lights and bounded down the ramp leading into the cavernous storage chamber with one leap.
“ If it turns red, you head for shelter.”
I reminded myself to check my wrist indicator every five minutes from now on. “What shelter,” I asked as Nikki and I followed him into the cavern.
“Underground,” Jake said. “The lunar rock gives shielding from radiation. Same reason the crew quarters and mess hall are underground.”
As we reached the bottom of the ramp, we had to turn our heads about to bathe the area with our suit lights. Straight ahead from the base of the ramp were a number of lunar “rovers;” large, tracked vehicles that were useful only for traveling about on the surface of the crater since they couldn’t climb the steep incline of the crater walls.
Next to the rovers were three platforms with a rail around two seats. “What are those?” I asked.
Jake turned to see where I was pointing. “Those are two-man flitters. They use them for short trips around the cavern. They have a very limited carry capacity.” He laughed. “When we get other vehicles built with gravity rods in them, they’ll really simplify moving things on the Moon.”
“And Earth,” Nikki added.
“Revolutionary.”
We journeyed down the right ramp to six empty rooms. Beyond that was a large storeroom piled high with plastic crates.
“What are in those boxes?” Nikki asked and sprang toward them. She looked at those in her light then hopped over to some more. “Rats, they’re only bar coded… It’s impossible to tell what’s in them. We’ll have to look for the computer manifest. There could be enough stuff to outfit a whole colony.” She leaned back so her helmet light revealed the rows of crates that extended upward.
“Let’s go back the other way,” I said. “The bots would be in larger containers. These are all too small.”
We located the bots in a huge chamber that, like the others, had been carved out of the solid rock. Inside it were at least several hundred bots of various types along with an equal number of spare parts kits and support tools for the different models. Each of the bots was wrapped in a tough, clear plastic container.
“How about that?” Jake said as we stood there bathing the bots in the light from our suits. “A whole army of them. If we can get some of these back to our base…”
“The ‘if’ again,” I said.
“Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “That’s not going to be easy given the limited space of the van.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Jake, could we use the cable you brought along? Would that hold?”
Jake laughed, patting the carbonylon cable he’d wrapped around his shoulder and under one arm, “If the van can lift them, the cable will hold anything up to 14 tons. String them up under the van and away we go.”
“Sounds logical,” I said, “only I’m afraid it won’t work. The downward wash from the anti-grav rods would cause anything below the van to either be knocked off or ripped apart. We’ll have to fill the van then fasten them to the top and sides.”
“We’d better fasten them carefully so the load won’t shift around,” Nikki cautioned. ” I can imagine what might happen if one swung loose and flopped around changing the balance of the van at a critical moment.”
Hurtling toward the face of the Moon because of a poorly tied square knot. Not a pretty picture.
“Are the bots operational?” Nikki asked.
“We’ll see,” Jake said. He stepped forward and pressed the release seam down the plastic cover. The cover opened; Jake reached in and flipped the control switch on. Nothing happened.
“Looks like we may have some work to do. I wonder whether they lack batteries or just need to be charged. Anyone know how to open a bot up?”
“Just a minute,” I said. ” I had some bots like these over here in my lab.” I bounced over to the mechanicals. “Yeah, these are standard lab bots in space man’s clothing. Let me pop one open and check its energy pack.” I pulled off the plastic sheeting that surrounded it and tried the activation switch on the off chance that Jake had picked a malfunctioning bot. But like the other, this bot failed to come on line.
I spent the next few seconds trying to remove the battery cover so I could see inside the power compartment. Suit lights are sure awkward; I had to do a contortionist imitation before I could see. ” It has batteries but they aren’t charged.”
“How are we going to—”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” I said. “We can run a cable off the van’s generating system. It’ll take a while but it should work. Let’s start moving the bots to the front door.”