“Nothing,” said Culver in surprise. “It’s yours that doesn’t work.”
“Well—never mind. Anyway, what happened to Olcott?”
“Took off for Tycho. Gone for a posse to hunt for you, I guess.”
“Why didn’t they radio for help?”
Culver grinned a little self-consciously. “That was me,” he explained. “I—I told them we didn’t have enough juice to run the radio. They didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything they could do. We don’t have very much power, and that’s a fact.”
Templin laughed. “Good boy,” he said. “All right. Here’s what I want to do. Olcott said he was going to Hadley Dome. I want to be there when he gets there. I think it’s time for a showdown.”
Culver looked forlorn, but all he said was, “I’ll get a rocket ready.” He went to the teletone in the anteroom, gave orders to the ground crew of the rockets. To Templin he said, “Let’s go outside.”
Templin nodded and got ready to put his helmet back on. As he was lifting it over his head something caught his eye.
“What the devil!” he said. “Hey, Culver. Take a look.”
Culver looked. At the base of the helmet was a metal lug to which was fastened one of the radio leads. But the lug was snapped off clean; bright metal showed where it had connected with the helmet itself. The radio was broken.
Culver said in self-satisfaction, “Told you so, Temp; it was broken before, when I tried to talk to you outside.”
Templin said thoughtfully, “Maybe so. Might have broken when I ran into that rock out at the crater—no! It couldn’t have been broken. I was talking to a miner over it just before I met you.”
“What miner?”
Templin stared at him. “Why, the one who left the building just before you did.”
Culver shook his head. “Look, Temp,” he said. “I had all hands in here when Olcott and the lieutenant took off. And I was the first one out of the place afterwards. There wasn’t any miner.”
TEMPLIN STOOD rooted in astonishment for a moment. Then he blinked. “I talked to somebody,” he growled. “Listen, I’ve got twenty minutes or so before I have to take off. Let’s go out and take a look for this miner!”
Culver answered by reaching for a suit. Templin picked another helmet with radio tap intact and put it on; they trotted into the pressure lock and let themselves out the other side.
Templin waved. “That’s where I saw him.” But there was no sign of the “miner”.
Templin led off toward where the pressure-suited figure had seemed to be heading, out toward the old Loonie city. They scoured the jagged Moonscape, separating to the limit of their radio-contact range, investigating every peak and crater.
Then Culver’s voice crackled in Templin’s ear. “Look out there!” it said. “At the base of that rock pyramid!”
Templin looked. His heart gave a bound. Something was moving, something that glinted metallically and jogged in erratic fashion across the rock, going away from them.
“That’s it!” said Templin. “It’s heading toward the Loonie city. Come on—maybe we can head him off!”
The thing went out of sight behind an outcropping of rock, and Templin and Culver raced toward it. It was a good quarter mile away, right at the fringe of the Loonie city itself. It took them precious minutes to get there, more minutes before they found what they sought.
Then Templin saw it, lying on the naked rock. “Culver!” he whooped. “Got it!”
They approached cautiously. The figure lay motionless, face down at the entrance to one of the deserted moon warrens.
Templin snarled angrily, “Okay, whoever you are! Get up and start answering questions!”
There was no movement from the figure. After a second Culver leaned over to inspect it, then glanced puzzledly at Templin. “Dead?” he ventured.
Templin scowled and thrust a foot under the space-suit, heaved on it to roll it over.
To his surprise, the force of his thrust sent the thing flying into the air like a football at the kick. Its lightness was incredible. They stared at it open-mouthed as it floated in a high parabola. As it came down they raced to it, picked it up.
The helmet fell off as they were handling it. Culver gasped in wonder.
There was no one in the suit!
Templin said, “Good lord, Culver, he—he took the suit off! But there isn’t any air. He would have died!”
Culver nodded soberly. “Temp,” he said in an awed voice, “just what do you suppose was wearing that suit?”
5
TEMPLIN jockeyed the little jet-ship down to a stem landing at the entrance to Hadley Dome, so close to the Dome itself that the pressure-chamber attendant met him with a glare. But one look at Templin’s steel-hard face toned down the glare, and all the man said, very mildly, was, “You were a little close to the Dome, sir. Might cause an accident.”
Templin looked at him frigidly. “If anything happens to this rathole,” he said, “it won’t be an accident. Out of my way.”
He mounted the wide basalt stair to Level Nine and pounded Ellen Bishop’s door. A timid maid peeped out at Templin and said: “Miss Bishop is upstairs in the game room, sir. Shall I call her on the Dome phone and tell her you’re here?”
“Tell her myself,” said Templin. He spun around and climbed the remaining flight of stairs to the top of Hadley Dome.
He was in a marble-paved chamber where a gentle fountain danced a slow watery waltz. To his right was Hadley Dome’s tiny observatory, where small telescopes watched the face of the Earth day and night. Directly ahead lay the game room, chief attraction of Hadley Dome for its wealthy patrons and a source of large-scale revenue to the billionaire syndicate that owned the Dome.
For Earthly laws did not exist on Hadley Dome; the simple military code that governed the Moon enforced the common law, and certain security regulations…and nothing else. Grimes of violence came under the jurisdiction of the international Security Patrol, but there was no law regulating drugs, alcohol, morals—or gambling. And it was for gambling in particular that the Dome had become famous.
Templin hesitated at the threshhold of the game room and stared around for Ellen Bishop. Contemptuously, his eyes roved over the clustered knots of thrill-seekers. There were fewer than fifty persons in the room, yet he could see that gigantic sums of money were changing hands. At the roulette table nearest him a lean, tired-looking croupier was raking in glittering chips of synthetic diamond and ruby. Each chip was worth a hundred dollars or more… and there were scores of chips in the pile.
Templin took his eyes off the sight to peer around for Olcott. The man was not in the room, and Templin mentally thanked his gods.
But at the far end, standing with her back to the play and looking out a window on the blinding vista of sun-tortured rock that was the Sea of Serenity, was Ellen Bishop, all alone.
Templin walked up behind her, gently touched her on the shoulder. The girl started and spun round like a released torsion coil.
“Templin!” she gasped. “You startled me.”
Templin chuckled comfortably. “Sorry,” he said. “Have you seen Olcott?”
“Why, no. I don’t think he’s in the Dome. But, Temp—what is the trouble at Hyginus? Culver radioed that the Security Patrol was after you for something! What is it?”
“Plenty of trouble,” Templin admitted soberly. “And I only know one way out of it; Look, Ellen—don’t ask questions right now; there are too many people around here, with too many ears. And I want you to do something.”