One Against the Moon (11 page)

At first he saw nothing unusual. Outside the cave all was quiet. Then he noticed that his food pack had been moved. It had been dragged outside the cave, and its contents pulled out.

Robin got to his feet, went to it. Something had come into the cave silently, had taken the sack, and had examined its contents. He looked about, amazed and wondering.

Now he saw that other things had been touched. His canteen had been rolled over and the stopper unplugged. The water that had been inside was a little puddle on the cave floor.

Alarmed, Robin strung his bow, notched an arrow, and looked carefully around at the surrounding vegetation. Something was there, something big and cunning.

His eyes searched the ground and then he saw an outline in water from the canteen. Whatever it was had stepped into the puddle and then walked out of the cave. Robin saw a series of footprints.

Something that walked on two legs, something that took steps with a man-sized stride, something with three toes on each foot, that walked upright, was able to open bottles, look into sacks, and spy on sleeping strangers.

Something that might well be to the Moontiger and the Moonhound what Earth man was to the Earth tiger and the Earth hound. Moonman!

The situation was so astonishing that for a while Robin did not do anything but sit down inside his cave and catch his breath. Somehow he had assumed all along that he would not find anything on a human scale on the Moon. His life had been mainly confined to the first cavern-bubble he'd arrived at and this, as he now realized, had been a rather isolated one.

Unconsciously, he had assumed that life in other protected airtight sublunar areas would be on a similarly low and limited level. Now he realized that he had had no right to make such an assumption. The Moon might harbor thousands and tens of thousands of bubbles; some might be hundreds of miles in scale; some, lower down, nearer the still-warm volcanic heart of the satellite, might even approach tropical climates and show little of the semi-monthly seasonal changes. In such places life might grow in profusion, might compel the kind of battle for existence as would bring out the evolution of a brain-carrying creature living on its wits.

And, although he was probably a little farther away from the central caverns at this moment, he was actually on the outskirts of the linked bubbles. In such border regions he might indeed encounter rovers and wanderers from the more prolific areas.

But the problem was now how to find this prowler. There was, he hoped, only one of them. The creature was probably hanging around somewhere, even now, keeping an eye on Robin's doings.

Robin got to his feet, looked through his provisions. He found a bit of rabbit meat, took it out, and skewered it on a cooking stick. He then knelt inside his cave-refuge and built a fire, using his flint and steel. Over this fire he hung the bit of meat and set it to roasting. He carefully began to fan the smoke out of the cave, knowing that it would carry the new and tongue-tempting odor of cooked meat to everything in the vicinity.

Robin slipped out of the cave and hid himself in a thick clump of growth nearby. Cheeky clung to his shoulder, hushed to silence. They waited.

After a few minutes Robin saw a slight motion in the vegetation at the other side of the cave entrance. He watched, and a moment later saw a head thrust itself out, and then a figure emerge and silently stalk to the cave and look in. It was manlike, walking on two feet and it had two arms. It was oddly misty, seeming naked and semi-transparent like the other animal life.

In one hand the creature carried a long stick to which something sharp and glassy was attached—clearly a type of spear. The creature paused at the cave mouth, then seeing no one within and unable to resist the tantalizing curiosity of cooking meat and a small fire, it went inside.

Immediately Robin dashed out of hiding, ran across the small space and blocked the entrance of the cave with his body. The creature within was bending over the meat, but on hearing Robin, it turned, and made a wild dash for the cave mouth.

It collided with Robin. For a moment there was a wild scramble of arms and legs and then Robin's greatly superior Earth muscles overpowered the other's and the creature was caught. Robin held it tightly in his arms, carried it into the cave, and sat it down.

The spear had been knocked aside in the tussle and Robin looked at it with a glance. One glance was enough to make the young man realize that he had had a narrow escape. Its tip was bright and as sharp as a piece of broken glass. If the creature had thought to jab that spear, it might have been deadly.

But now the captured being was sitting quietly in a sort of resignation, merely looking at Robin with the same curiosity that Robin bestowed upon it. It was very much like a human being, perhaps some four feet tall. But its head was somewhat triangular in shape, having only one eye (Robin never found any Moon creatures with two), and was topped with a large yellow light bulb that extended a foot above.

Robin took the bit of meat, cut off a piece and held it out to the creature. The Moonman looked at it, then reached out a hand and took it. It smelled it, then tasted it, and, finding the taste to its liking, swiftly gobbled it down.

Robin ate some too, and this gesture seemed to reconcile the other. A fairly universal gesture, Robin thought. Only friends would share a meal. Probably would hold true anywhere in the universe.

Now Robin picked up the other's spear and examined it. Seeing this, the creature picked up one of Robin's sacks and also looked at it.

The sharp point of the spear was something that looked like glass but glistened far more, seemed sharper, harder, and heavier. Robin turned it over, and the realization struck him that this spearhead was a diamond, a single six-inch-long shard of diamond!

After the first shock of this discovery, Robin realized that he should have expected it. On such a volcanic world as the Moon had once been, there might well be lots of diamond in great masses. What could be easier to use for weapons and cutting edges than chunks broken from such masses. Such a chunk brought back to Earth might be worth an emperor's ransom—but who could think of such values here?

Getting the friendship of the Moonman proved to be easy after that first effort. For the creature made no further effort to escape, seemed itself to desire Robin's companionship. In fact, as it turned out, Robin would have had a hard time getting rid of it. It seemed anxious now to stay close to the Earthling, to share him with Cheeky.

The glass-skinned being had a language, for it soon began to jabber away at Robin in a high-pitched squeaky tongue. After a little experimentation, Robin was able to get it to repeat the name Robin, and in turn, he found out that the Glassie's own name was something nearly like Korree.

Korree was evidently a very primitive sort of savage in spite of his ability to speak. As Robin set out to re-cross this bubble and return to his own holdings, the creature wound in and out ahead of him, returning steadily to see if all was well. Korree had no clothes and no understanding of them. He had only his spear, which Robin had returned to him and he had apparently lost faith in that, the first time Robin used his bow and arrow on a yapping Moontiger.

The trip through the dark tunnels back to Robin's original bubble was comparatively easy, for no sooner did they get into the darkness than Korree's light organ began to glow brightly enough to render Robin's lantern dim. When they came to the cleft, Robin had to pick the Moonman up and jump with him, for Korree's muscles were built only for Moon gravity and that leap was beyond his normal ability.

Once back in what Robin now thought of as the safety of his original bubble, the two settled down to work together. Korree soon got the hang of the simple duties Robin gave him—feeding the rabbits, slaughtering, skinning, and tanning. They spent the time trying to learn each other's languages.

Robin carefully jotted down each new sound or word he could identify in the Glassie's speech and Korree in turn seemed anxious to imitate the English.

It took about four months before they had a working interchange of ideas. Robin found that the Glassie's language was quite limited in many ways, though having a great many variations of verb form—a typical characteristic of primitive tongues. Finally, however, Robin heard Korree's story.

His people lived many bubbles away, possibly many months of travel, though the Glassie idea of time was very vague and seemed hedged around by all sorts of untranslatable mystic conditions. There were maybe several hundred of them and they formed one big tribe or family.

There were many such tribes, usually one to a bubble-cavern. Korree indicated that somewhere—he pointed downward—were greater caverns where many tribes lived, tribes of great strength or magic or knowledge. Robin could not decide which was meant—probably all three. But Korree had never been there. These downward regions were taboo to his people.

Robin's suspicion was that the Glassies from Korree's group had been forced to live in the less desirable outer areas by the stronger and more advanced races who had seized the better regions.

Korree indicated that there were many bubbles that were not inhabited because of great terrors, either by heat or cold. Robin assumed he meant caverns of jungle and caverns more exposed to the surface temperatures.

Korree himself had broken some sort of tribal rule or magic and had been chased out of his home. He was a lonely outcast. That was why he had gone with Robin when Robin had given him food. This symbolized acceptance into Robin's tribe. And though Robin looked to him like a very strange sort of man indeed—a solid man, a "rock" man was the way Korree explained Robin's nontransparent flesh and his tremendous strength—Korree had been glad to find acceptance anywhere.

Carefully questioning Korree about the surface, Robin found that the Glassie had apparently no conception of what sort of a world the Moon really was. To him it was a place of many enclosed spaces. The surface he had neither seen nor even dreamed of. That there could be a place where the enclosures ended and the world "dropped off" into nothing, this was something he could not imagine.

Robin then asked questions about the upward regions. Korree indicated that these were less and less habitable, that his people strove always to go down, never up. Robin twisted his questions around, trying to determine if the Glassies had ever seen anything that might signify the surface. He described the sun and the Earth to Korree but the Glassie seemed unable to understand. But when he spoke of the sun as being a bright glowing thing so bright that it hurt the eyes to look at it, Korree seemed to remember something.

Carefully the Glassie told Robin that he had heard of a tribe that lived somewhere in the upper regions, where in one part of their bubble there sometimes came a terrible white-hot light that hurt when one looked upon it. This light was not always there, but shone through the top of the cavern, which Korree explained was like the substance of his arm—that is, semi-transparent.

Robin became very excited when he heard this. It sounded to him as if somewhere up near the surface there must be an airtight cleft or bubble whose outer crust might be natural volcanic glass. Through this the sun might sometimes penetrate to produce the phenomenon Korree described.

Plainly then, this was the place Robin must find. It looked like the ideal place to begin his projected signaling to Earth. But whether it was or not, Robin would have to make a visit there to see.

Korree did not like the idea, but indicated he would be willing to go along. "Could you lead me there?" Robin asked.

"Much hard," Korree replied. "Can make do. You-me not like. Many-winter trip, many bubbles."

But Robin was determined. "We will go. First I must make a space suit. I may need it." Korree spread out a hand in acceptance.

It took about two months more to finish what Robin hoped would be a workable space suit. The helmet he finally managed to weld into something like a practical shape. It fitted over his head snugly, the little glass plate in front of his eyes. Its seams were closed as best as could be managed and sealed with melted animal fat. The bottom of the helmet fitted snugly over Robin's shoulders and would be attached to baggy leather arm-and-hand coverings. The bottom of Robin's body would be simply encased in several layers of clothing made as airtight as possible.

To carry a supply of air, Robin fashioned a large sack of Moonhound skins, which, when filled with air and brought to the surface of the Moon, would swell up like a huge balloon. He hoped that by breathing from this reserve he might be able to survive on the surface for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. This would be all he would need, he estimated, to rush out, set up some sort of reflector or flare if he could contrive such, and dash back to safety. "Safety" would, of course, be some previously sealed dome extending to the surface, through which he could cut a space narrow enough to leave, and yet, one which would not be entirely exhausted of its inner gases by the time Robin got back to reseal it.

This was a long-chance project, yet it was the only hope Robin could think of. The matter could at least be examined at closer range if he could but find the cavern with the translucent roof. This would be an ideal base for his project.

Robin packed his equipment, liberated the last of his penned rabbits, and loaded as much food as he could in big sacks which he and Korree carried. Then, preceded again by Cheeky's monkey bounds, Robin turned his back on his "home" and headed back to the tunnel and the caverns beyond.

It had been over a year and a half since he had been cast away on the Moon, perhaps nearer two years. And now he was ready at long last to begin the long trek home.

As they progressed, Robin queried Korree as best he could as to the exact location of this fabled place from which the sun could be seen. "I not know from here," the Glassie replied. "Go from home place, yes. We go Korree home place first."