He saw Anna starting to work by the time he was dismantling the second supply rocket. She was awkward at first, and did lose her balance several times, but mastered the knack quickly. Once she had it, she moved more gracefully and easily than Carmody. Within an hour they had payload sections of a dozen rockets lined up near Carmody’s rocket.
Eight of them were American rockets and from the numbers on them, Carmody knew he had all sections needed to assemble the shelter.
“We’d better set it up,” he told her. “After that’s done, we can take things easier. We can rest before we gather in the other loot. Even have a drink to celebrate.”
The Sun was well up over the ringwall of Hell Crater by then and it was getting hot enough to be uncomfortable, even in an insulated spacesuit. Within hours, Carmody knew, it would be so hot that neither of them would be able to stay out of the shelter for much longer than one-hour intervals, but that would be time enough for them to gather in the still uncollected supply rockets.
Back in the supply depot on Earth, Carmody had assembled a duplicate of the prefab shelter in not much more than an hour. It was tougher going here, because of the awkwardness of working in the thickly insulated gloves that were part of the spacesuits. With Anna helping, it took almost two hours.
He gave her the sealing preparation and a special tool for applying it. While she caulked the seams to make the shelter air-tight, he began to carry supplies, including oxygen tanks, into the shelter. A little of everything; there was no point in crowding themselves by taking inside more of anything than they’d need for a day or so at a time.
He got and set up the cooling unit that would keep the inside of the shelter at a comfortable temperature, despite the broiling Sun. He set up the air-conditioner unit that would release oxygen at a specified rate and would absorb carbon dioxide, ready to start as soon as the caulking was done and the airlock closed. It would build up an atmosphere rapidly once he could turn it on. Then they could get out of the uncomfortable spacesuits.
He went outside to see how Anna was coming with her task and found her working on the last seam.
“Atta baby,” he told her.
He grinned to himself at the thought that he really should carry his bride over the threshold—but that would be rather difficult when the threshold was an airlock that you had to crawl through on your hands and knees. The shelter itself was dome-shaped and looked almost exactly like a metal igloo, even to the projecting airlock, which was a low, semicircular entrance.
He remembered that he’d forgotten the whisky and walked over to one of the supply rocket sections to get a bottle of it. He came back with it, shielding the bottle with his body from the direct rays of the Sun, so it wouldn’t boil.
He happened to look up.
It was a mistake.
“It’s incredible,” Granham snapped.
Carmody glared at him. “Of course it is. But it happened. It’s true. Get a lie detector if you don’t believe me.”
“I’ll do that little thing,” Granham said grimly. “One’s on its way here now; I’ll have it in a few minutes. I want to try you with it before the President—and others who are going to talk to you—get a chance to do it. I’m supposed to fly you to Washington right away, but I’m waiting till I can use that lie detector first.”
“Good,” Carmody said. “Use it and be damned. I’m telling you the truth.” Granham ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. He said, “I guess I believe you at that, Carmody. It’s just—too big, too important a thing to take any one person’s word about, even any two people’s words, assuming that Anna Borisovna—Anna Carmody, I mean—tells the same story. We’ve got word that she’s landed safely, too, and is reporting.”
“She’ll tell the same story. It’s what happened to us.”
“Are you sure, Carmody, that they were extra-terrestrials? That they weren’t—well, Russians? Couldn’t they have been?”
“Sure, they could have been Russians. That is, if there are Russians seven feet tall and so thin they’d weigh about fifty pounds on Earth, and with yellow skins. I don’t mean yellow like Orientals; I mean bright yellow. And with four arms apiece and eyes with no pupils and no lids. Also if Russians have a spaceship that doesn’t use jets—and don’t ask me what its source of power was; I don’t know.”
“And they held you captive, both of you, for a full thirteen days, in separate cells? You didn’t even—”
“I didn’t even,” Carmody said grimly and bitterly. “And if we hadn’t been able to escape when we did, it would have been too late. The Sun was low on the horizon—it was almost Moon night—when we got to our rockets. We had to rush like the devil to get them fueled and up on their tail fins in time for us to take off.”
There was a knock on Granham’s door that turned out to be a technician with the lie detector—one of the very portable and very dependable Nally jobs that had become the standard army machine in 1958.
The technician rigged it quickly and watched the dials while Granham asked a few questions, very guarded ones so the technician wouldn’t get the picture. Then Granham looked at the technician inquiringly.
“On the beam,” the technician told him. “Not a flicker.”
“He couldn’t fool the machine?”
“This detector?” the technician asked, patting it. “It’d take neurosurgery or post-hypnotic suggestion like there never was to beat this baby. We even catch psychopathic liars with it.”
“Come on,” Granham said to Carmody. “We’re on our way to Washington and the plane’s ready. Sorry for doubting you, Carmody, but I had to be sure—and report to the President that I am sure.”
“I don’t blame you,” Carmody told him. “It’s hard for me to believe, and I was there.”
The plane that had brought Carmody from Washington to Suffolk Field had been a hot ship. The one that took him back—with Granham jockeying it—was almost incandescent. It cracked the sonic barrier and went on from there.
They landed twenty minutes after they took off. A helicopter was waiting for them at the airport and got them to the White House in another ten minutes.
And in two minutes more they were in the main conference room, with President Saunderson and half a dozen others gathered there. The Eastern Alliance ambassador was there, too.
President Saunderson shook hands tensely and made short work of the introductions.
“We want the whole story, Captain,” he said. “But I’m going to relieve your mind on two things first. Did you know that Anna landed safely near Moscow?”
“Yes. Granham told me.”
“And she tells the same story you do—or that Major Granham told me over the phone that you tell.”
“I suppose,” Carmody said, “that they used a lie detector on her, too.”
“Scopolamine,” said the Eastern Alliance ambassador. “We have more faith in truth serum than lie detectors. Yes, her story was the same under scopolamine.”
“The other point,” the President told Carmody, “is even more important. Exactly when, Earth time, did you leave the Moon?”
Carmody figured quickly and told him approximately when that had been.
Saunderson nodded gravely. “And it was a few hours after that that biologists, who’ve still been working twenty-four hours a day on this, noticed the turning point. The molecular change in the zygote no longer occurs. Births, nine months from now, will have the usual percentage of male and female children.”
“Do you see what that means, Captain? Whatever ray was doing it must have been beamed at Earth from the Moon—from the ship that captured you. And for whatever reason, when they found that you’d escaped, they left. Possibly they thought your return to Earth would lead to an attack in force from here.”