Moon of Mutiny Page 8

  "You'll have to install it by feel, I guess," Fred told Boland and Wallace. The dust would blind them and make lights useless.

  Inside the helmet, Boland's dark, wide face split into an easy grin. "No worse than working in some of the blizzards we've seen. Got tools here, Halpern?"

  The two men took the tools, replacement hitch, and the cable and headed into the dust pit, feeling for the hard surface ahead with sections of welding rod. As they moved forward, they sank slowly until their heads disappeared. The cable snaked out, showing they were making progress. Then it remained still for a few moments, until a double jerk indicated the men had found the front of the trailer.

  Judging by the antenna, Fred backed the tractor into position, getting as close to the dust trap as he dared. He went out again, to start work on its fractured hitch.

  Sessions joined him, watching the operation between glances at the dust pit. The scientist took the part Fred removed and examined it. "This was defective, Fred. See how the fracture runs? It's a good thing it didn't break back on that ledge in the mountains. And there's no way of testing the other hitches."

  Fred was shaken. The flaw had been too deep for discovery at Emmett Base, but all the metal parts supposedly had been inspected for hidden faults before leaving Earth. Some man in a testing operation had been a little careless, unaware of how important the checks were. The accident could have taken several lives.

  "I'm beginning to see why discipline and responsibility are necessary," he muttered.

  Sessions grinned. "I didn't mean to point a finger at you, Fred. But you're right. Ah!"

  The cable had given three jerks, which meant the job was done. Fred drew it taut and began fastening it to the new hitch. He finished just as Boland and Wallace came out of the pit, guiding themselves along the cable.

  It was not difficult to get the trailer out now, though he urged the tractor ahead at minimum speed until he could see the wheels of the trailer break free. He went on a few feet more before stopping and going back to examine the trailer for damage. Together with Sessions and the ones who had been inside, he went over every inch of it. There was no sign of damage, and the dust seemed to have slipped off completely.

  He touched his helmet to that of Mona Williams while they stood side by side. Sound could pass from helmet to helmet without the use of radio. "That was smart thinking to raise the antenna."

  "Thanks," she said tersely; there was no warmth in her voice. He couldn't see her face, and a second later she was moving away.

  They picked up the trail again, moving slowly through the thick dust. The treads of the tractor sent up great whorls of it. It drifted back slowly under the weak lunar gravitation; since there was no air to keep it from falling, it settled before the next tractor reached the same spot.

  During the next day, they hunted their way through a section of broken boulders that seemed to cross the plain, then ran into more of the huge dust bowl. There was still a range of cliffs and mountains ahead of them before they could reach their destination.

  Fred began noticing a queer sound as another day passed. It wasn't steady, and sometimes was missing for hours. But each time it returned, it was worse. He went over the undercarriage of the tractor during the next lunch break, and could find nothing. It was back as they took up the trail again, coming for longer intervals, with shorter breaks. It was a thumping that seemed to be transmitted through the floor of the tractor. He tried to spot its location, but the whole floor acted as a sounding board, making it impossible to find the origin of the trouble below him.

  He called Sessions over the radio, and the leader joined him. The sound was stronger now. The scientist glanced at his watch. "Want to stop and hunt for it, Fred, or do you think we can trust the machinery for another hour? We'll be halting at the base of the mountains then."

  That would take them further out of the dust, probably into an area high enough to be free of the stuff entirely, making inspection easier. They decided to go on.

  After dinner, Sessions sent Boland to help Fred look for the trouble. The man was listed as a highly specialized type of mineralogist, but his work required using so much heavy equipment that he claimed to be a good mechanic as well. Most of the men on the expedition had been picked for a diversity of abilities.

  Working together, they managed to jack up one side of the tractor and get one of the treads and shields off. Then they examined the complicated machinery that powered and guided the big silicone rubber treads over a series of rollers.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon in the west, and they were working by artificial light. That was an advantage over the uncontrollable sunlight for this purpose. The ground was cooling; it would soon be far below freezing, sinking hundreds of degrees below zero before the long lunar night ended. This was another advantage to the work; the suits could be warmed by battery power much more easily than they could be kept insulated from the high daytime heat.

  "Dust in everything," Fred commented as they worked. "It must have worked its way into the grease fittings. I'll try forcing the old silicone grease out with a new pressure dose. Find anything, Mike?"

  The heavily built man wriggled further forward. "Nothing yet. I don't like the looks of a lot of this, Fred, but it's just a feeling I get. Sure the motor bearings are sound?"

  "The motor's behaving," Fred answered. That was one area where he was the expert, and he'd been over it thoroughly.

  Boland grunted suddenly. "Here. Come take a look."

  It was a bearing on one of the differential shafts. As Fred felt it, he could see it move slightly, indicating wear that created enough play to let the shaft whip, accounting for the sounds he had heard. Naturally, it was one of the hardest bearings to get out, and one for which there was no replacement. He crawled back for more tools, grumbling with Boland as they went to work on it. They would have to take it off, smooth down the shaft, and pour Babbitt metal to form a new bearing face in the old part. It was makeshift, but the best they could do. The whole operation took more than four hours.

  They skirted along the plain the next day, looking for a pass through the mountain chain. It was nearly hopeless in the dark, since their most powerful lights could not reveal enough details to show how far any trail went. The route suggested by the photographs had proved impossible; a two-hundred-foot cliff blocked their way, although it was not in the picture.

  The original schedule called for passage through the mountains during the period of lunar day, but their progress had fallen far behind. Now they might have to run three hundred miles north and double back to get around the mountains, rather than blindly attempting to go through.

  It wasn't all bad, however. Driving by the beams of the powerful lights was easier than heading into the sun. "Beams," of course, was not quite the right word; there was no air to show the path of light, which simply reflected back from whatever it struck. Seeing was nearly perfect within the range of the lights.

  "I read a story once in some magazine about animals living here," Ruth Miles said the next evening. "The author had it figured out that the beasts lived on the run, going around their world and staying near sunset, where it wasn't too hot."

  "That would be some running, aside from live animals being impossible here," one of the men objected.

  Fred had been computing it in his head. The tables had been lifted to the ceiling and they were dropping the shelflike bunks from the walls, getting ready to turn in. "It wouldn't require too much speed. The terminator between light and dark moves about ten miles an hour here at the Moon's equator, instead of a thousand as it does on Earth. In this gravity, that wouldn't be hard."

  "I guess I read the same story," Dr. Villiers, the biologist, said. He sounded wistful. "There were supposed to be plants that built oxygen domes for the animals to live on. Not a bad idea, even if it wasn't true. I wish there were some life here—any kind. It would be the biggest discovery since fire."

  They batted the idea around, getting nowhere with it. Fr
ed realized he was being accepted finally as one of them. Perhaps time was partly responsible; he suspected the closer contact with Boland had helped, for Boland was well liked by everyone else. There were still lingering doubts about him, he supposed. However, the men seemed willing to be convinced.

  Then the tractor began to make noises again. This time, the sounds were different and equally disturbing. Something was under the tractor and Fred and Boland investigated. Although the new bearing wasn't perfect, it was holding up fairly well, and they could probably renew it. Others were showing signs of wear, though. Apparently they had been unable to get all of the dust out of the grease supply.

  "It might not matter too much," Boland summed up their conclusions for Dr. Sessions. "It only takes a little wear to make some machinery noisy. That doesn't mean it's ready for the scrap heap. I vote that it's still safe enough."

  They went on, but the next day things were worse. On the twelfth day out from Base, the whining and muttering sounds changed to a clatter which could mean more serious trouble.

  Sessions worked with them that night, holding the light and trying to be helpful. The expedition was his responsibility, and his reason for being there was the need to see the damage for himself. Others might know more about machinery, but he wanted his own impressions.

  The original repair was about half worn, but the damage was less serious than Fred had thought. Other signs of wear were showing up. The injection of new silicone grease under pressure couldn't free tiny particles of dust ground into the metal or caked in the old grease.

  The chief cause of the new sound was a shaft which

  must have bound in its bearing and twisted under the strain of torque. It was slightly bent, though it had worn free in the bearing; at each rotation it set up an imbalance that was transmitted to other parts of the undercarriage. There was no way of being sure how much the distortion had weakened it.

  Sessions crawled under the tractor, studying things while they explained what they had found. His face was grim as he came out with them and watched as they made what temporary repairs they could. There wasn't too much to be done.

  In the morning, everyone was called together in the trailer that served as the men's bunkroom. They huddled together, sitting on the bunks, while Sessions summed up the situation, with some explanations from Fred and Boland.

  It wasn't a pretty picture. There were parts that needed dust shields to prevent further trouble on the plains where they were headed. Such things should have been installed originally, but nobody had realized that the old theory of the dancing dust would prove to be fact; the first few flat areas explored were ones where no dust had formed, though false radar indications probably proved that there were far more dust-ridden sections than not. The grease fittings also needed tighter sealing, and seals should be provided at opposite ends.

  As a result of wear, there were a number of major bearings which needed proper relining, rather than a temporary job of pouring in babbitt. Some of the shafts were roughened; they could be smoothed down with files and crocus cloth, but a true finish took better machinery. Finally, there were other major replacements or repairs, and the whole drive mechanism of the tractors needed rigid inspection.

  "Funny all those things keep happening to Fred's tractor," one of the men remarked. A few faces looked startled and then speculative.

  "That's enough!" Sessions said sharply. "Mr. Halpern has been in the lead most of the time. I've assigned him the toughest job, and it isn't at all surprising that his machine shows more damage than the others."

  He went back to his summation. In his judgment there wasn't enough they could do here to insure safety. The tractor needed to be taken back to the ships, where more equipment for repairs was available, or to be worked on in the shop of the colonists. While the other tractors seemed to be standing up, they could no longer be trusted without a thorough going-over.

  The only solution was to turn back. They could leave the laboratory and supply trailers behind in a cache here, to be picked up again on the next trip. Traveling light, they would make much better time with the advantage of knowing the trail.

  Someone suggested leaving the dormitory trailers, but Sessions vetoed that at once.

  "Nobody stays behind. I won't risk having men stranded here because of some accident happening to our tractors. The equipment can be lost—but no lives, if I can help it."

  They began unloading at once, setting up a plastic tent to hold the supplies not required on the short return trip. The tractors pulled the small supply trailers and the laboratory into a square around it. They installed an automatic radio responder beacon on the cache, set to start transmitting upon being triggered by a coded pulse from one of the radios. It would guarantee their finding the cache, even if they lost directions somewhere on the trip back.

  Mike Boland touched helmets with Fred. "Forget that nonsense spouted back there, Fred," he said. "There's always some sorehead in any group. Most of the guys know that you've had the trouble because you've had the rough job of leading."

  Fred muttered his thanks. He had been trying to forget the accusation that he was responsible for the trouble. For that matter, the man who'd spoken against him might not have meant the words; boredom and frustration over the wasted time on the trail had shortened tempers.

  The words had been said, nevertheless, and the idea planted. These men weren't superstitious, yet they knew that some people really were accident prone; it wouldn't take many disappointments to convince them that he was such a modern jinx. After that, working with them would be nearly impossible for Fred.

  The worst part of it was that he couldn't be entirely sure in his own mind that he wasn't an accident prone— too many things had gone wrong around him.

  Chapter 9 Rock Slide

  traveling light, they made much better time than had been possible on the trip out. The darkness helped in many ways, too. The dust settled as soon as the charge of particles from the sun vanished; this made it easier to tell what kind of ground they were covering. They soon learned to spot dust pits by the extreme smoothness of the dust.

  Fred was in the lead again. Although his tractor had suffered the most damage, it was now traveling without a trailer. There was too much noise from the worn parts, but no sign that things were getting worse. He cut straight across the level plain toward the mountain passage they had left days before.

  They made a brief stop for lunch, while Dr. Sessions beamed a tight radio signal out toward space and the Station circling Earth. Since there was no air on the Moon, radio signals could not be reflected below the horizon, thus there was no way to reach Emmett Base directly; the Station would pick up the message and relay it to Base, so that everything would be ready by the time the expedition returned.

  There was another stop for dinner, then Dr. Sessions

  107

  decided to push straight on, without the usual halt for sleep.

  "I don't like continuous driving," he told Fred. "But we've lost too much time on this trip already. Can you handle a twelve-hour shift in the lead, Fred?"

  Fred nodded. It wasn't hard physical work, though it required constant alertness. With the breaks for lunch and dinner, he would have enough rest to handle it. "Mike Boland knows how to drive the tractor," he suggested.

  "I already told him he'd be your relief," Sessions said, breaking into a quick smile. He went off to talk with the other drivers, appointing reliefs for each.

  Fred rode with Boland for about an hour, making sure that the geologist picked up all the hints and tricks he had learned in judging the land over which they traveled. Then he bunked down in the dormitory trailer. It took a little while to get used to its pitching and bumping motion, but he was tired enough to fall asleep without much trouble.

  The next day, one of the other tractors reported trouble with the drive train, and the third reported similar trouble in another hour. Inspection at the next lunch stop showed wear, but no evidence that the machines couldn't make t
he trip back. They pushed on.

  This time, they took the alternate passage through the mountains which they had spotted on the trip out. It was a risk; the pass could have difficulties no one could see from above, and finding alternate trails in the darkness would be a problem. The risk seemed justified, for the old passage had been too tricky and had taken too much time. As it turned out, the new pass had only one really bad place—a break caused by a rock slide. After careful examination, they found a way around which took less than an hour. Boland shook his head in amazement as the miles of the passage went by without serious trouble.

  "This stuff looks as if an ancient lava flow had filled in a deep cut along here to make a road for us. There wasn't supposed to be that much volcanic activity on the Moon. I wonder if we'll ever really understand how any of the planets and satellites were formed."

  "This is only the third exploration, after all," Fred reminded him. "We can't learn everything in a few weeks."

  Boland laughed. "Fred, it's tougher than you think. We've been studying Earth scientifically for two centuries now, and we still don't know much about our own planet. In fact, we've learned almost as much about her from these Moon expeditions as we learned in all our other efforts. It would take hundreds of explorations to get any real idea of what this little world is like. Remind me to show you something after dinner, if the weather reports for Earth were right."

  Fred didn't have to remind him, and the weather reports had been right, of course; from the Station, predicting major weather a month ahead was not difficult. Boland came up, carrying a small six-power telescope. "Come away from the lights of the trailers," he suggested. "Back behind one of those rocks."

  Once they were in darkness, Earth was a majestic sight in the sky. Four times as large as the Moon when seen from Earth, the bluish-green tint and the markings of oceans and continents were a sight to lift anyone's heart. It seemed like a great jewel resting on black velvet, with a thick sprinkle of stars to give it a setting. The atmosphere of the planet gave it a soft mantle.