One Against the Moon (14 page)

More cave talk and interchange. There was a delay for a while and Robin could faintly hear voices within the cave, as if the chief were discussing the matter with someone else. Then a command was issued. The captors pulled on the ropes and urged Korree and Robin to the door of another cave. They pushed them into this and rolled a large boulder in front of the cave mouth to block their exit.

It was dark inside the cave but not so dark that they could not see that it was about twenty feet long and that there were a number of piles of stuff around, food possibly, or remnants of things. Korree and Robin eased themselves down on the hard floor.

Robin studied the vegetable cords that bound him. He twisted his hands and pulled until he got his elbow up where he could exert pressure. Then he strained against one of the bonds. In a few seconds it parted and broke. In this way he snapped bond after bond until he was free. He was sticky from them, for the stalks had been soaked in some sort of adhesive substance which had made them so effective. But the strength of Earth muscles was more than they had ever held before.

Next Robin went to work on Korree's bonds and broke them off one by one. The two silently stretched their cramped bodies. Korree glanced back at the dark end of the cave and his headlight organ glowed brightly for a moment. Something among the bundles was stirring slightly. Korree said quietly, "Another prisoner or a listener?"

Robin looked. Yes, there was something over there, apparently tied up also. It might be a Glassie prisoner, or it might be some one of his captors trying to spy on them. He shrugged. Let them try. They couldn't understand English.

The two sat down near the entrance, conversed quietly. Korree was of the opinion that the Glassies would eventually kill them in some sort of ceremony. Robin never had found out how different tribes of Glassies acted toward each other. Evidently they did not make war, but neither did they have much contact or exchange. In general, they treated each other like suspicious strangers, avoiding contact whenever possible. But it seemed now that when strangers did force their way into unwelcome tribal caverns, death was the result. This was fairly typical of the most primitive savages on Earth and it was evidently a rule for that level of culture anywhere in the universe.

For a while then they sat silently, thinking about their plight. Robin, somehow, was not too worried. He had become so used to the superiority of his muscles that he felt that he could eventually manage his escape when the time came. The question was, where could he escape to? This particular region was not actually a part of the honeycomb of Luna's interior—it was a cleft sealed in by a trick of volcanic fate on the very surface. Probably it had no other exit than the one which led into it.

Again, escape though he might, could he save Korree too? He thought about it in silence. Korree broke the meditations. "Have hunger. Is food here?"

"There must be some around," said Robin, glancing back at the things in the rear of their prison-cave. The figure back there stirred a bit. And then there was a mumbling sound and a voice said something. The voice was deep and strong, unlike the sound of a Glassie's tongue. But Robin could not understand it. Korree too looked and listened.

"Did you understand him?" Robin asked his companion.

Korree shook his head. Now at the sound of Robin's words occurred the most astonishing surprise that Robin had yet encountered. The unseen speaker spoke again:

"Who is that? Is there someone here who speaks English?"

It was a human voice! It spoke Robin's language, though the intonation and accent were not quite right. Robin and Korree hastened back to the rear of their cave to the reclining figure of the speaker. In the light of Korree's head-stalk, it was indeed a man, an Earth man!

He was lying, tied hand and foot, on a pile of scraps, but he was raising his head, staring at them eagerly. He was a young man, evidently not much older than Robin. His blue eyes looked at them with relief and he smiled widely.

"You are a human! I thought I was dreaming when I heard a voice I could understand. You must be an American ... then the Americans must have beaten us here after all!"

Robin knelt down by the man, worked at his bonds. They were tight, real cord of nylon or some Earth-made substance. It took the combined strength of the two of them to finally open the knots and free the man.

"Who are you?" Robin asked, as he worked. "Do you have a rocket on the surface?"

The man got to his feet, rubbed his muscles. He was dressed in a simple blue one-piece flyer's coverall. He was taller and slimmer than Robin, and his hair was tousled and reddish.

"My name is Piotr Ivanovitch Kareff," he said, bowing with a European gracefulness. "I regret to tell you that my rocket is indeed on the surface—but there it will stay forever. We crashed. But I am so glad to see you. You do not know how glad."

Robin shook hands. "I hate to disappoint you, but I must tell you that we are in the same predicament. I have no rocket here. I was hoping when I heard your voice that you might have one we could go back in."

The other looked confused, shook his head. "No rocket? Oh, that is too bad. Very bad."

The Glassie, who had been watching them without understanding too much of the rapid-fire quality of normal speech, suddenly said, "Have hunger much. Is food here."

He turned his back on the two men, pawed through the scraps on the cave floor, coming up with some of the provisions that Robin had packed with him.

"I'm hungry, also," said the Russian. "They have not fed me since they threw me in here. Is this stuff good to eat?"

"Try it," said Robin and the three sat down and ate. Robin sat munching and stared at the other man. The first human he had seen in almost two years. A real live man! But where did he come from? How did he get here? And how was it he was a prisoner?

For a while after they had finished, they looked at each other. The Russian spoke. "You must have a story to tell me, Robin Carew. How did you say you got here?"

Robin briefly outlined what had happened to him, the other listening attentively. When Robin had finished, he asked, "Now I want to know about you? It's your turn."

"Yes," said Piotr, "I shall tell you."

"I was an orphan of World War II," said Piotr Ivanovitch Kareff in a quiet voice, speaking precise English with a fair fluency. "My family were all vanished, I know not what happened to them. I was brought back to Russia by our soldiers and sent to a state school in the Urals set up to take care of such as myself.

"There I was a good scholar and I made myself good marks. When I was old enough, I qualified for study at a higher institute and was sent to a college for engineers. I was always interested in astronomy and rocket aviation and I was therefore trained along those lines.

"When I was eighteen, I was allowed to continue my engineering education as a part of my military duty. I was in the army, yet still studying, only this time I was stationed at one of the big experimental centers we have deep in Siberia. You probably do not know about them. They are very secret.

"The one I was at was located near the shores of Lake Baikal, the big inland sea in Central Asia near Mongolia. This was the biggest center for the study of liquid-fuel rockets. While I learned the theory, I also worked on the actual projects and helped fire many of our big rockets. These were designed after the German V-_2, the same designs you Americans are also building on. We, too, had captured German scientists who had worked on these. They had much to show us, and one of the smartest of these men was the Captain Von Borck who even became a member of the party or so he said.

"I am not a political man, I am really interested in rockets, so I did not pay too much attention to these things. Von Borck may be truly believing what he desires, I do not know, but I think he is just what you call an opportunity seeker.

"After my army service, I chose to remain at the Lake Baikal station as a regular engineer. I worked on the thousand-mile rockets, and finally on the satellite rockets, and I helped get them up there. It was a nice race with you Americans. We knew a little of your plans—those you publish in the papers—and we always were urged to beat you. Sometimes we did. Sometimes you beat us.

"At our centers we made a game of this. It was serious to our country, but to us, men of science, all discoveries by human beings are great things. We liked to think of our work as a great game of mental chess with you Americans—with the pieces on the board carefully hidden from sight and reported only through guesswork and bad witnesses.

"When the satellites were up and flying their orbits around the Earth, yours and ours, the next game was obviously to race for the Moon. Should we plant the Red flag there, or you the Stars and Stripes? So we worked at that. We did not this time know what you were doing. Maybe you had different ideas.

"So Van Borck discovered a means of using atomic explosions in a steady rocket stream and explained the principle. We worked on this motor a while and finally the Ministry ordered the building of one rocket which could fly to the Moon with this super-powerful engine. At first our commander at the base said it should be a robot-piloted model, but Moscow did not want that. They wanted that men should go on that first trip. They wanted that a Soviet man should be first to reach the Moon.

"They did not know about you, Robin, and your stowaway trip! Ha! But even the Americans do not apparently know about you, alas for both of us!"

Piotr stopped a moment, got to his feet, went to the door of the cave and listened. He came back. "No one there watching us. I go on," he said.

"So finally was built a big rocket with the first atomic explosive engine. Von Borck himself was going to go in it as its engineer. But Von Borck was not really a Soviet man, and I do not think Moscow was happy about it. So they allowed for the ship to have a three-man crew. I was selected, because I am young and quick and have a good record, and also maybe because I have no family to be sorry I not come back maybe. Arkady Pavlovitch Zverin was the third, who was also an orphan.

"Came a day when the big rocket was complete and ready. We said good-by to our friends and at the right time we went up the ladder and into our big rocket. That day, which seems to me so long ago, must have been not even a week ago yet!

"We took off perfectly, we blasted for ten minutes—I thought my head would burst—and we were on our way. Von Borck piloted it, but there was really little to do. When it came time to reverse the rockets and make our landing, we had trouble. Our gyroscope control was stuck and we had to fight with it by hand to move it. This made a delay and when we did get our jets reversed and working, our timing was off. Von Borck struggled to slow us up and come to a real stop, but we were a little too fast. We came down blasting away, and we hit very hard.

"The rocket was partly smashed. The engines and tubes all crushed. The nose was badly jarred and poor Arkady was killed by the impact. Von Borck, too, was thrown from his seat, knocked unconscious on the floor of our little cabin. I was badly bruised, but I remained conscious.

"Fortunately for us, the little cabin remained airtight. When all was still, I looked over what happened. I looked outside. We were in a large crater, whose bottom was crisscrossed with cracks. One of these, running into the distance, was quite glassy and I saw that something like steam was issuing from a point near it. This meant to me that somewhere underneath the surface there might be a place with air and water.

"I had at first thought all was lost and I would remain in the little cabin until the air was used up or the food gave out. This would be only a few days. But I thought that any chance, however little, was better than no chance. So I managed to get to the locker and get out two space suits. One I put on Von Borck who was still unconscious, but whom I could not leave behind. The other I got into myself.

"I took the German over my shoulder and managed to get out of the ship through the lock which was still intact. Carrying my companion—it was easy, he was so light on the Moon—I explored the cracks near where the ship fell. I found a way leading down and even a series of very natural air locks—a most unusual development.

"Passing through many caves and tunnels I made my way and finally got to this one. Von Borck had regained consciousness but he was not in his right senses. He was talking nonsense. He believed—I do not know how to put it—he was the King of the Trolls. He thought he was somewhere in—fairyland or hell or some supernatural place. He did not remember the trip.

"When we first met these Moon people—you call them Glassies—Von Borck said they were his Trolls. He killed four of them with his own hands and the rest became afraid of him, thought him a god or demon come to rule them. He let me alone a little while, then he seized me, tied me up himself, and put me here.

"I am afraid that he plans to sacrifice us. He is completely crazy and he has these Glassies obeying him. I am sorry for us."

Piotr stopped talking. He looked at Korree appraisingly. Robin understood his intention. "I'm afraid that Korree won't have any influence with these Glassies. They are a different tribe."

Robin rubbed his hands a bit. "I really think we should be able to escape, even so. We now outnumber Von Borck two to one and I think if we pick our time we could manage to make a getaway. We'll have to be careful. Do you think you could get back to your rocket on the surface?"

The Russian nodded. "I guess we could. I was planning to go back from the start."

"Is there anything there we could use to signal the Earth with?" asked Robin. "A radio, flares, mirrors?"

Piotr nodded. "We had speaker-radio equipment, but it was smashed in the landing. It was the first thing I tried after we hit. But we do have flares. We could signal with them."

"I imagine," said Robin, "that both the Americans and Russians must be working on Moon rockets now. If we can signal back there, the next rocket along might come to this crater and find us."