"I think we've got some good news for you."
Owens and Connolly shared a brief, hunted look. "Roger that, Emmett," Owens fought to control his voice. "What's the scoop?"
"Liu's been working on the Number Two Shuttle, says he can have it ready in about eight days for a one-way trip to your site."
A strangled laugh slipped past Owens' lips. "Well-Jesus Christ, Emmett! What good is that going to do us?"
"Shut up, Owens," Connolly shouted, taking over the communications panel. "What have you got in mind, Emmett?"
Potter explained Liu's plan, and the four of them went over the details for the next eighty-five minutes. The Fast Eddie's signal was beginning to fade as Potter added: "And please, Brian; be very thorough when you take soundings of that landing area. We don't want to hit another sinkhole like you did and have two busted up elevators in the basement."
Owens laughed an acknowledgement as he signed off.
Potter's signal had been gone for a full minute before Connolly put a hand to his forhead in panic. "Oh, my God . . . the sounding equipment; it's all in the ground car with Miller and Ike."
Owens began trying to raise the BuReloc man and their own engineering crewman, to no avail. "Jesus, they haven't been gone more than an hour and a half, how far could they get?"
Connolly sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.
"I suppose," he said finally, "that we can take some comfort in the idea that not very much more can go wrong on this trip."
Owens kept calling Miller and Ike, trying not to think about how wrong Connolly could be.
Miller and Ike were gone for five days, and the rest of the crew had given them up for dead. Owens and Connolly had begun clearing a landing area a few hundred yards north, taking soundings manually with a metal pole heated by a battery pack, for although there was snow on the ground, the ground frost beneath was quite thin. Despite the moon's miserable cold, it was extremely dry this close to the sheltering mountains that separated the valley from the sea winds. The clearing was done with no tools heavier than makeshift brooms and piled rocks to keep fresh drifts out.
Owens and Connolly had been sweeping clear the landing zone in a clockwise pattern, and had reached eight-thirty when the Navigator noticed his British First Officer staring off into the distance.
"Christ, Connolly, you're not snowblind, are you?"
Connolly dropped his broom and started running past Owens. "It's the ground car; it's Miller and Ike, come on!"
Powder clouds of dry snow puffed up around their feet as the two men ran toward the ground car, the thin, cold air of the wretched little moon raking their lungs in spite of their face masks. Owens thought that men might one day learn to run on this forsaken rock, but they would never enjoy it.
The ground car slowed and turned in their direction when they were within fifty yards, and both of them could see the carcass of some large, shaggy quadruped draped over its hood. Owens and Connolly staggered to a fast walk.
"What the hell is that?" the Navigator wheezed.
"Indigenous life form." Connolly too was panting as they closed the distance. "Herbivorous grazer, I suspect; likely inhabitant for this sort of terrain.
Owens shook his head. "First kill on the new world. Man has arrived."
Connolly threw him a sidelong glance; Owens was not the sort of fellow who made pronouncements on the morality of his species. And in any case, something about the animal carcass bothered him. Even as they approached, it looked wrong to him; too-lumpy. "Oh, bloody hell," Connolly said abruptly.
The ground car had chuffed to a halt as they reached it, and both Connolly and Owens could see all the details of the mooselike animal tied securely to its hood. And tied behind it, giving it the unnatural appearance Connolly had noted, was the body of a man wrapped in plastic. The feet protruded from one end, revealing the thick, CoDo issue explorer's boots of the engineering crewman Icaoruis, better known as Ike.
Miller popped the door and leaned out. "There was an accident, he said. "I'm sorry."
Neither Owens nor Connolly said anything, and Miller went on: "Get in, we'll drive him back to the shuttle."
Owens turned without answering and headed back for the clearing. After a moment, Connolly followed, leaving Miller standing in the open door of the ground car cab. Finally, the BuReloc man settled back into the cab and drove on to the shuttle. Owens took his hand from his pocket just long enough to casually raise his middle finger to Miller as he passed.
"What do you think happened?" Potter asked during the next communications cycle.
Connolly sighed. "I don't know, Emmett. Miller says they were up in the foothills, digging at some crystalline ore, when they saw this musk-ox-antelope thing. Ike apparently thought it would be good eating, so he shot it with one of the rifles from the ground car. Then, when he was climbing down to the carcass, some big predator jumped him out of nowhere, apparently trying to steal the kill. Ike lost his footing, and fell into a defile before Miller could do anything."
"How did Miller get the carcass away from the predator?"
"He says he drove it off with the other rifle. Possible, I suppose."
Potter's silence ate up a good deal of their precious communications time. "Do you believe him?"
"Hell, no," Owens said firmly in the background.
Connolly sighed. "I don't know, Emmett. The animal carcass looks pretty torn up, like a tiger was at it for a minute or two. Miller recovered Ike's rifle when he brought the corpse up. Both are pretty banged about."
"All right. Liu's a little ahead of schedule, he says the second shuttle will be ready in two more days. We've gotten a little sloppy in our radio contacts; that's not to happen anymore. I want you or Owens on this line every ninety minutes, clear?"
"Got it."
Owens leaned in and said: "And what if we have 'accidents,' too, Emmett?"
"Then the Fast Eddie writes off the Survey Team and heads home."
Connolly and Owens shared a look. "I see," Connolly said. "So we'd best hope neither of us slips into a coma."
"You or Frank on this line, every hour and a half," Potter repeated. "And make sure our guest knows it."
Potter signed off, and leaned back against the chair. He had to prop his feet against the console edge to do it.
In low gravity, as in politics, he considered, leverage is everything.
Behind him, Chief Engineer Liu stared intently at the silent communications console. "Bad," was all he said.
Potter nodded faintly. "Yup."
Connolly coined the term "muskylope" for the grazer Miller had brought back, and despite the mood of the camp being only a little less frigid than the outside air, all three enjoyed the taste; after their forced diet of survival rations, fresh meat was a welcome relief.
But once the steaks were gone, then Owens' and Connolly's distrust of Miller settled back in. They openly refused to sleep at the same time, an insulting statement which provided great moral satisfaction at first, but which only resulted in Miller being the one man in camp who was getting a decent amount of rest during the moon's seemingly endless day.
"Look at him," Owens said after waking Connolly for his relief. "Sonofabitch sleeps like a baby.
"Why not? He knows he's safe."
"But is he?" Owens asked Connolly in a low voice.
"Yes, I am," Miller answered, and Owens turned to see the BuReloc man watching them calmly from his sleeping bag.
Owens shook his head. "You spooks are pathetic; America's in bed with the Russians in our glorious CoDominium, so there's nobody left to spy on; nobody except everybody. What did you find out there? Something too important to let poor Ike live after he'd seen it? Or was it just for practice?"