Lot of manpower there. What work would need all those hands? Most of it must be going on in the hangar. Meanwhile, a city of tents and campers was going up on the desert.
It had been like this in the days when the shuttle landed. Much larger crowds then, of course. Several square miles of Nature's own parking lot, with guides to set them in rows. Campers, tents, a line of huckster tent-booths selling food, drink, badges and patches, photos and paintings, commemorative mugs and T-shirts. At night, little coal fires, music, sometimes a whiff of marijuana; tiny parties and profound silences, while hundreds of thousands of people waited for dawn.
Everybody else always saw it first. Then there it was, nose pointed way down, the world's boxiest glider. You'd hear BooBoom, a double sonic boom from the nose and the awkward bulge at the tail.
Afterward the Air Force raked up their several square miles of garbage and ran a roller over the black spots where fires had been, and it was as if the crowds had never been.
Twenty to thirty of them, now; no more. No spacecraft would be landing tomorrow. Were they singing? Did they tell old stories? Lee Arteria the outsider, the watcher, watched and wondered what she was waiting for.
Wheep! Wheep! Wheep! Captain Lee Arteria tore off the fax sheet and spread it.
WE'RE HERE AT GEORGE AFB. TWO SQUADS AIR POLICE, TWO PILOTS, YOUR HELICOPTER AND ME. STANDING BY FOR ORDERS. COLONEL MURPHY WANTS TO KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE. I TOLD HIM YOU HAD A BIG CASE BUT I'D FIND OUT.
BILLINGS
Yeah. I'm going to have do something pretty quick or get off the pot. But when? By waiting she got license plates and photographs of conspirators: half a dozen cars and trucks with a dozen people--sensitive fannish faces on Thunder Ridge.
But what good was this doing? Especially now. One call, and the Air Police would surround the place. Her chopper would come. Imagine the consternation when she landed!
So far there were no decisions to make. The astronauts--she was quite certain that was who they were--had made no attempt to leave the base. Everyone else could be identified and tracked down.
So what are you waiting for, dear? Lee Arteria had always liked the chase better than the kill; but this was different, very different.
The motorcycle started, was coming down the hill now. Two people on it. The usual overweight bearded driver. No guitars. It was just dusk, not much light, and they were moving too fast for her to see the face of the rider, who was wearing a helmet anyway, but it clearly wasn't the thin older woman who usually rode back there.
There was a tool kit strapped to the luggage carrier. The motorcycle reached the bottom of the hill, but instead of turning north onto Rocket Site Road--on her new, map it was labeled Ecology Ruin Drive--the motorcycle turned west. That road led around Rogers Dry Lake and down to the south entrance of the base, into the area still guarded by the Air Force. What in the world would they be doing there? They'd need papers--
When the road turned southwest, the motorcycle continued due west. It passed just under Arteria's hill and continued out across the dry lake. Curiouser arid curiouser--
… Night was falling fast now. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. What in hell can they be planning?
She got out her best night glasses. There was just enough moonlight to let the big binoculars follow the unlighted motorcycle across the lake--
They stopped about a quarter of a mile from the fence, left the bike, and went on foot to the fence.
Not quite to the main fence. To a smaller fenced compound outside the main base. The two figures huddled near the fence on the far side from the base. No one was likely to see them--no one not watching them in the first place, anyway. In a few minutes they were inside the fence and alongside the corrugated aluminum building. Either the door wasn't locked or they were good at lockpicking, because it didn't stop them for long.
They went in. Arteria timed it: nine minutes and a couple of seconds. Then they were out again, out the door, pause to repair the fence, then out on the lake, running to the bike. They walked it for half a mile, then started it up and drove without lights. The desert wind covered the sound as they drove back up to Thunder Ridge.
Arteria got out her map of the base. It took a while to find the area that the bandits had visited, but there it was:
HYDROGEN PIPELINE VALVE CONTROL BUILDING
A main hydrogen pipeline led down from the north, across Edwards, and on toward Los Angeles. Two smaller lines branched off at Edwards. One went from the valve building into Dryden. The other went around the dry lake and up to Thunder Ridge.
"Slicker'n ary weasel," Harry said. "Got in, broke the lock, turned on the valve, and epoxied the lock back so nobody'll notice even if they look."
"They can find the hole in the fence," C.C. Miller said.
Bob Needleton said, "We did a pretty good job of restoring the fence, too. It's like the lock, if they know to look they'll find it, but that's the only way. The real question is, is the hydrogen coming through?"
"There's pressure," Hudson said. "We're bleeding out air now, but if there's pressure, we'll have hydrogen by morning. OK. Well done. Tomorrow comes the real work."
Harry was weeping. "Shame," he said. "Goddam shame." He crawled out of the tank, painfully, like the first fish that tried to conquer the land. He was wearing white coveralls, white socks, and a big white painter's hat. His face and beard were nearly covered by white cloths, and he wore white gloves. He stood up in the sunlight, leaning heavily on Jenny Trout, and blubbered. "Goddam crying shame."
"How horrible. All that scotch." Fangs voice echoed like a thousand metal ghosts. His head popped out of the opening, swathed in white like Harry's and smiling a goofy smile. "Liter… rary reference."
"It's in a good cause," Hudson said. "Harry, you're supposed to clean that tank, not drink the solvent."
"I didn't drink one damn thing. Not one," Harry blubbered. "Poor LASFS. Nothing to drink anymore. All they had."
"Drink, no," Fang said. "Woosh! But a man's got to breath. Doesn't he? Hee!"
"Anyway, I think that's enough for Harry," Hudson said. "You, too, Fang. Who's next?"
" 'How horrible! All that scotch!' Mad magazine, fifties," Fang said. "When the oxygen comes in, we should breathe summa that. Hangover."
"I'll take a turn," Jenny said. "I'm with Harry, though. Distilling the alcohol off good scotch and bourbon is a hanging offense." She took Fang's protective garments as he wrestled them off. "Cheer up, Harry. You've never been so drunk, and the LASFS paid the bill."
The noise began at noon, the high-pitched scream of a jet engine. Arteria's camp was fully three miles from Thunder Ridge, but it was still noisy. She swept her binoculars over the area. The fans had clustered around one of the big cylindrical tanks, had opened it up and gone inside two and three at a time. They came out staggering. Now they had the tank sealed off and they'd started the big jet engine on a stand next to the other partially buried tank. Other fans were carrying things into the big hangar that housed the rocket Arteria had never seen.
There was other machinery running, too. A big diesel engine belched smoke on startup, and still put fumes into the air. That one seemed to be attached to the larger of the two fuel cylinders. After a while the lines from the diesel began to smoke.
Not smoke. Condensation, even in this dry air. LOX! They're making LOX, which would explain their working on the tank, cleaning it out. LOX, and hydrogen.