Templin spread his hands. “Next time, bring your lunch,” he said.
The lieutenant spoke up. “We felt blasting going on, Templin,” he said. “What was it?”
“Opening a shaft,” Templin explained carefully; “we’re in the mining business here, you know.”
Olcott said, “Never mind that. Where are you getting your power?”
Templin looked at him curiously. “Solar radiation,” he said. “Where else?”
“Liar!” spat Olcott. “You know that your sun-generators broke down! You don’t have enough reserves to carry you through the night—” He broke off as he caught Templin’s eye.
“Yes,” said Templin softly, “I know we don’t have enough reserves. But tell me, how did you know it?”
Olcott hesitated. Then, aggressively, “We—the Security Patrol has its ways of finding things out,” he said. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’ve been tracing your power lines out from the mine; if they end in solar generators, I’ll admit we were wrong. I’m betting they end in a plutonium pile.”
Templin nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s follow the lines.”
OCOTT’S rage when they came to the banks of light-gathering mirrors and photocells knew no bounds. “What the devil, Templin,” he raged. “What are you trying to put over on us? Look at your power gauges—you haven’t enough juice left there to electrocute a fly! Your reserves are way down—the only intake is a couple of hundred amps from the reflected Earthshine—and you’re trying to make us think you run the whole mine on it!”
Templin shrugged. “We’re very economical of power,” he said. “Go around turning lights out after us, and that sort of thing.”
The lieutenant had the misfortune to chuckle. Olcott turned on him, anger shining on his face. Templin stood back to watch the fireworks. Then…Olcott seemed, all of a sudden, to calm down.
He glanced at one of the miners, who had come up to join them, then at Templin. He pointed to the spot where Templin had just touched off the blast concealing the pile.
“What’s over there?” he demanded triumphantly.
Templin froze. “Over where?” he stalled; but he knew it was a waste of time.
“Under that blasted rock,” crowed Olcott. “You know what I’m talking about! Where you just blasted in the tunnel over your contraband plute pile!”
Templin, dazed and incredulous, stumbled back a step. How had Olcott stumbled on the secret? Templin could have sworn that a moment ago Olcott was completely in the dark—and yet—
Olcott snarled to the lieutenant, “Arrest that man! He’s got a plutonium pile going in violation of security regulations!”
Hesitantly the lieutenant looked at his superior officer, then at Templin. He stepped tentatively toward Templin, arm outstretched to grab him…
Templin took a lightning-swift split-second to make up his mind, then he acted. He was between the other three men and the mine buildings. Beyond them was the Moon, millions of square miles of desolation. It was his only chance.
Templin plunged through the group, catching them by surprise and scattering them like giant slow-motion ninepins. Leaning far forward to get the maximum thrust and speed from his feet, he raced ahead, spanning twenty-foot pits and crevasses, heading for a crater edge where the rocks were particularly jagged and contorted. He was a hundred yards away, and going fast, before the three men could recover from their astonishment.
Then the first explosion blossomed soundlessly on a jagged precipice to his right.
It was the lieutenant’s rocket pistol, for Olcott had none of his own—but Templin knew that it was the fat man’s hand that was firing at him. Templin zigzagged frantically. Soundless explosions burst around him, but Olcott’s aim was poor, and he wasn’t touched.
Then Templin was behind the crater wall. He crashed into a rock outcrop with a jolt that sent him reeling and made him fear, for a second, that he had punctured the air-tightness of his helmet. But he hurried on, ran lightly for a hundred yards parallel to the wall, found a jet-black shadow at the base of a monolith of rock and crouched there, waiting.
There was no hiss of escaping air; his suit was still intact. After a moment he saw the lights of two men crossing the crater wall. They bobbed around for long minutes, searching for Templin. But there was too much of the Moon, too many sheltering hollows and impenetrable darknesses. After a bit they turned and went back toward the mine.
Templin gave them an extra five minutes for good measure. Then he cautiously crawled out of his hiding place and peered over the ridge.
No one was in sight, all the way to the mine buildings. He watched the lights of the buildings for a while, his face drawn with worry. The events of the last few moments had happened too rapidly to give him a chance to realize how bad a spot he was in. Now it was all coming to him. He had made a desperate gamble when he took the plutonium pile—and lost.
He stood there for several minutes, thinking out his position and what he had to do.
Then he saw something that gave him an answer to one of his problems, at least.
There was a sudden swelling burst of ruddy light that bloomed beyond the mine buildings, in the flat place where rocket ships landed. It got brighter, became white, then rose and lengthened into a sharp-pointed plume that climbed toward the tiny, bright stars overhead. It was the drive-jet off a rocket, taking off. Templin watched the flame level off, hurtle along at top speed in the direction of Tycho Crater.
It was the jet that had brought Olcott and the lieutenant, Templin was sure. They were going—but they would be back.
He hadn’t much time. And he had a lot to do.
TAKING NO chances Templin kept in the cover of the jagged rocks as he approached the dome. A few hundred yards from it he saw a pressure-suited figure moving toward him. He stood motionless in indecision for a moment, until he saw that the helmet on the figure was milkily opaque. A miner’s helmet.
Templin stood up and beckoned to the figure. When it was within a few yards he said, “Have the Security Patrol officers gone?”
The miner stopped. Templin was conscious of invisible eyes regarding him through the one-way vision of the helmet. Then he heard a voice say: “Oh, it’s you, Templin. I was wondering where you were.”
Templin thought that there was something curious about the voice—not an accent, but a definite peculiarity of speech that he couldn’t recognize. Almost as though the man were speaking a foreign language—
Templin glanced toward the dome and dismissed the thought. Someone was coming toward them; he had to make sure of his ground. He asked, “That rocket I saw—was that the Security Patrol? Have they both gone?”
“Yes.”
“Fine!” Templin exulted. “Where’s Culver, then?”
The figure in the space-suit gestured. Templin, following the pointing arm, saw the man who was coming toward them. “Thanks,” he said, and raced to meet Culver, who was quartering off toward the power plant. Templin intercepted him only a short distance from the main building.
“Culver,” he said urgently, “come into the dome. I’ve not got much time, so I’ve got to move fast. When Olcott and—He broke off, staring. Culver was looking at him, his expression visibly puzzled even in the twilight, his mouth moving but no sound coming over the radio.
“What’s the matter?” Templin demanded. Culver just stared. “Ahh,” growled Templin, “your radio is broken. Come on!” He half-dragged Culver the remaining short distance to the dome. They climbed into the airlock, Templin closed the outer pressure doors and touched the valve that flooded the chamber with air. Before they were out of the lock Templin had his helmet off, was motioning to Culver to do likewise.
“What the devil was the matter with your radio?” he demanded.