The Outward Urge, Page 7

  Troon got up, and walked out from behind the rock. He stood for some moments, a lone scarlet figure in the black and white desert, looking at his Moon Station. Then, picking his path carefully between the missile-pits, he made his unhurried way back to it.

  At the end of dinner he asked if he might have the pleasure of the doctor’s company at coffee in his office. Looking at her over the rim of his cup, he said:

  ‘It would seem to have worked.’

  She regarded him quizzically through her cigarette smoke.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed. ‘Like a very hungry bacteriophage. I felt as if I were watching a film speeded up to twice natural pace.’ She paused, and then added: ‘Of course, I am not familiar with the usual reactions of Commanding Officers who have been suspected of treason and stood in some danger of lynching, but one would not have been surprised at a little more - er - perturbation....‘

  Troon grinned.

  ‘A bit short on self-respect?’ He shook his head. ‘This is a funny place, Ellen. When you have been here a little longer your own sense of values will seem a little less settled.’

  ‘I have suspected that already.’

  ‘But you still need to get the measure of it. My immediate predecessor once said: “When I am on this singularly un-heavenly cinder, I make it an invariable rule to assume that the emotional content of any situation is seventy-five per cent above par.” I don’t know how he arrived at the seventy-five, but the principle is entirely right. You know, you yourself weren’t far off sharing the general opinion this morning - it gave you a sense of the dramatic, an angle for the feeling of tension, and helped to relieve the boredom of the place. You would not have felt like that at home; and I should not have behaved as I did, at home; but here, the occasions for standing firm, and for bending, are different. Technically, I am the C.O., with all the authority of the Crown behind me, and because of that we preserve certain forms; in practice, my job is more like a patriarch’s. Sometimes rank and regulations have to be invoked; but we find it better to use them as little as we can.’

  ‘I have noticed that, too,’ she agreed.

  ‘We realized when we came here that there would be particular problems, but we could not foresee all of them. We realized that we’d need men able to adapt to life in a small community, and because they would be restricted almost all the time to the station, we had them vetted for claustrophobic tendencies, too. But it did not occur to anyone that, out here, they would have to contend with claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time. Yet it is so; we are shut in, in a vast emptiness - it made a pretty grim mental conflict for a lot of them, and morale went down and down. After a year of it the first Station-Commander began to battle for an establishment of women clerks, orderlies, and cooks. His report was quite dramatically eloquent. “If this station,” he wrote, “is required to keep to its present establishment then, in my considered opinion, a complete collapse of morale will follow in a short time. It is of the utmost importance that we take all practical steps which will help to give it the character of a normal human community. Any measures that will keep this wilderness from howling in the men’s minds, and the horrors of eternity from frost-biting their souls, should be employed without delay.” Good Lyceum stuff, that, but true, all the same. There was a great deal of misgiving at home - but no lack of women volunteers; and when they did come, most of them turned out to be more adaptable than the men. And then, of course, the patriarchal aspect of the C.O.’s job came still more to the fore. It is no sort of a place for a disciplinarian to build up his ego; the best that can be done is to keep it working as harmoniously as possible.

  ‘I have been here long enough to take its pulse fairly well as a rule, but this time I slipped up. Now, I don’t want that to happen again, so I’d be glad of your further help to see that it doesn’t. We’ve dislodged this particular source of trouble, but the causes are still there; the frustrations are still buzzing about, and soon they are going to find a new place to swarm. I want the news early, the moment they look as if they have found it. Can I rely on you for that?’

  ‘But, seeing that the cause - the immediate cause, that is - is H.Q.’s failure to use us, I don’t see that there is anything here for them to concentrate the frustration on.’

  ‘Nor do I. But since they cannot reach the high-brass back home, they will find something or other to sublimate it on, believe me.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll be your ear to the ground. But I still don’t understand. Why - why doesn’t H.Q. use these missiles? We know we should be plastered, wiped out, in an attempt to put the main computer out of action. But most of the men are past caring about that. They have reached a sort of swashbuckling, Gotterdammerung state of mind by now. They reckon that their families, their homes, and their towns must have gone, so they are saying: “What the hell matters now?” There is still just a hope that we are being reserved for a final, smashing blow, but when that goes, I think they’ll try to fire them themselves.’

  Troon thought a little, then he said:

  ‘I think we have passed the peak of likelihood of desperate action. Now that they are sure that no firing orders were received, they must most of them swing over to the proposition that we are being conserved for some decisive moment - with the corollary that if our missiles are not available when they are called for, the whole strategy of a campaign could be wrecked. After all, could it not come to the point where the last man who still has ammunition holds the field? For all we can tell, we may at this very moment be representing a threat which dominates the whole situation. Someone could be saying: “Unconditional surrender now. Or we’ll bomb you again from the moon.” If so, we are rather an emphatic example of “they also serve….’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, after reflection. ‘I think that must be the intention. What other reason could there be?’

  Troon looked thoughtfully after her as she left. Her predecessor would have spread such a theory, offered as her own, all round the station in half an hour. He was not quite sure yet how much Ellen talked, and who listened to her. However, that would soon reveal itself. In the meantime he turned to the day’s reports, and spent an hour filling in the Station’s Log, and his own private log.

  Before leaving the office, he went over to the window again. The scene had not changed greatly since ‘morning’. The crater floor was still harsh in the sunlight of the long lunar day. The cut-out mountains looked just the same, just the same as they had for ten million years. The nacreous Earth had moved only a few degrees, and still hung with the night-line half across her face, and the other half veiled.

  Presently he sighed, and turned towards the door of his sleeping cabin....

  The jangle of the bedside telephone woke Troon abruptly. He had the handpiece to his ear before his eyes were well open.

  ‘Radar Watch here, sir,’ said a voice, with a tinge of excitement behind it. ‘Two ufos observed approaching south-east by south. Height one thousand; estimated speed under one hundred.’

  ‘Two what?’ inquired Troon, collecting his wits.

  ‘Unidentified flying objects, sir.’

  He grunted. It was so long since he had encountered the term that he had all but forgotten it.

  ‘You mean jet-platforms?’ he suggested.

  ‘Possibly, sir.’ The voice sounded a little hurt.

  ‘You’ve warned the guard?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re in the lock now.’

  ‘Good. How far off are these - ere - ufos?’

  ‘Approximately forty miles now.’

  ‘Right. Pick them up televisually as soon as possible, and let me know. Tell switchboard to cut me in on the guard’s link right away.’

  Troon put down the telephone, and threw back the bedcovers. He had barely put a foot on the floor when there was a sound of voices in his office next door. One, more authoritative than the rest, cut across the babble.

  ‘Zero, boys. Open her up.’

  Troon, still in his pyjamas, went through
to his office and approached his desk. From the wallspeaker came the sound of breathing, and the creak of gear as the men left the lock. A voice said:

  ‘Damned if I can see any bloody ufos. Can you, Sarge?’

  ‘That,’ said the sergeant’s voice patiently, ‘is south-east by south, my lad.’

  ‘Okay. But I still can’t see a bloody ufo. If you - ‘

  ‘Sergeant Witley,’ said Troon, into the microphone. A hush fell over the party.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How many are you?’

  ‘Six men with me, sir. Six more following.’

  ‘Arms?’

  ‘Light machine-gun and six bombs, each man, sir. Two rocket-tubes for the party.’

  ‘That’ll do. Ever used a gun on the moon, Sergeant?’

  ‘No, sir.’ There was a touch of reproof in the man’s voice, but one did not waste ammunition that had cost several pounds a round to bring in. Troon said:

  ‘Put your sights right down. For practical purposes there is no trajectory. If you do have to shoot, try to get your back against a rock; if you can’t do that, lie down. Do not try to fire from a standing position. If you haven’t learnt the trick of it, you’ll go into half a dozen back somersaults with the first burst. All of you got that?’ There were murmured acknowledgements.

  ‘I don’t for a moment suppose it will be necessary to shoot,’ Troon continued, ‘but be ready. You will not initiate hostilities, but at any sign of a hostile act you, Sergeant, will reply instantly, and your men will give you support. No one else will act on his own. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Carry on now, Sergeant Witley.’

  To a background sound of the sergeant making his dispositions, Troon hurried into his clothes. He was almost dressed when the same voice as before complained:

  ‘Still I don’t see no bloody - yes, I do, though, by God! Something just caught the light to the right of old Mammoth Tooth, see ...?’

  At the same moment the telephone rang. Troon picked it up.

  ‘Got the telly on them now, sir. Two platforms. Four men on one, five on the other. Scarcely any gear with them. Wearing Russian-type suits. Headed straight this way.’

  ‘Any weapons?’

  ‘None visible, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Inform the guard.’

  He hung up, and listened to the sergeant receiving and acknowledging the message, while he finished dressing. Then he picked up the telephone again to tell the switchboard:

  ‘Inform the W.O.’s mess that I shall observe from there. And switch the guard link through to there right away.’

  He glanced at the looking-glass, picked up his cap, and left his quarters, with an air of purpose, but carefully unhurried.

  When he arrived at the W.O.’s mess on the south-east side, the two platforms were already visible as shining specks picked out by the sunlight against the spangled black sky. His officers arrived at almost the same moment and stood beside him, watching the specks grow larger. Presently, in spite of the distance the clear airlessness made it possible to see the platforms themselves, the pinkish-white haze of the jets supporting them, and the clusters of brightly coloured space-suits upon them. Troon did not try to judge the distance; in his opinion, nothing less precise than a range- finder was any use on the moon. He clicked on the hand mike.

  ‘Sergeant Witley,’ he instructed, ‘extend your men in a semi-circle, and detail one of them to signal the platforms down within it. Control, cut my guard-link now, but leave me linked to you.’

  ‘Guard-link cut, sir.’

  ‘Is your standby with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell her to search for the Russian intercom wave-length. It’s something a little shorter than ours as a rule. When she finds it, she is to hold it until further notice. Does she speak Russian?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. She is to report at once if there is any suggestion of hostile intention in their talk. Cut me in on the guard-link again now.’

  The two platforms continued smoothly towards them, dropping on a long slant as they came. The sergeant’s men were prone, with their guns aimed. They were deployed in a wide crescent. In the middle of it stood a lone figure in a suit of vivid magenta, his gun slung, while he beckoned the platforms in with both arms. The platforms slowed to a stop a dozen yards short of the signaller, at a height of some ten feet. Then, with their jets blowing dust and grit away from under them, they sank gently down. As they landed, the space-suited figures on them let go of their holds, and showed empty hands.

  ‘One of them is asking for you, sir, in English,’ Control told him.

  ‘Cut him in,’ Troon instructed.

  A voice with a slight foreign accent, and a trace of American influence, said:

  ‘Commander Troon, please allow me to introduce myself. General Alexei Goudenkovitch Budorieff, of the Red Army. I had the honour to command the Moon Station of the U.S.S.R.’

  ‘Commander Troon speaking, General. Did I understand you to say that you had that honour?’

  He gazed out of the window at the platforms, trying to identify the speaker. There was something in the stance of a man in a searing orange suit that seemed to single him out.

  ‘Yes, Commander. The Soviet Moon Station ceased to exist several earth-days ago. I have brought my men to you because we are - very hungry.’

  It took a moment for the full implication to register, and then Troon was not quite sure.

  ‘You mean you have brought all your men, General?’

  ‘All that are left, Commander.’

  Troon stared out at the little group of nine men in their vivid pressure-suits. The latest Intelligence Report, he recalled, had given the full complement of the Russian Station as three hundred and fifty-six. He said:

  ‘Please come in, General. Sergeant Witley, escort the General and his men to the airlock.’

  The General gazed round at the officers assembled in their mess. Both he and his aide beside him were looking a great deal better for two large meals separated by ten hours of sleep. The lines of hunger and fatigue had left his face, though signs of strain remained.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have decided to give you an account of the action at the Moon Station of the U.S.S.R. while it is fresh in my mind, for several reasons. One is that I consider it a piece for the history books - and for the military experts, too. Another is that, although it appears to have brought the campaign in this theatre to a close, the war still continues, and none of us can tell what may happen to him yet. With this in mind, your Commander has pointed out that knowledge carried in a number of heads has a better chance of survival than if it is restricted to two or three, and suggested that I, who am in a better position to give the account than anyone else, should speak to you collectively. This I am not only honoured, but glad, to do, for it seems to me important that it should be known that our station fell to a new technique of warfare - an attack by dead men.’

  He paused to regard the faces about him, and then went on:

  ‘What you call in English the booby-trap - something which is set to operate after a man has left it, or is dead; a kind of blind vengeance by which he hopes to do some damage still - that is nothing new; it is, one would imagine, as old as war itself. But a means by which dead men can not only launch, but can press home an attack - that, I think, is new indeed. Nor do I yet see where such a development may lead.’

  He paused again, and remained so long looking at the table in front of him that some of his audience fidgeted. The movement caught his attention, and he looked up.

  ‘I will start by saying that, to the best of my knowledge, all life that still exists upon the Moon is now gathered here, in your Dome.

  ‘Now, how did this come about? You are no doubt aware in outline of the first stages. We and the American Station opened our bombardments simultaneously. Neither of us attacked the other. Our orders were to disregard the American Station, and give priority
to launching our earth-bound missiles. I have no doubt that their orders were similarly to disregard us. This situation persisted until, of our heavy missiles, only the strategic reserve remained. It might well have continued longer had not the Americans, with a light missile, destroyed our incoming supply-rocket. Upon this, I requested, and received, permission to attack the American Station, for we had a second supply-rocket already on the way, and hoped to save it from the same fate.

  ‘As you know, the use of heavy, ground-to-ground missiles is not practicable here, nor would an attempt to use our small reserve for such a purpose have been permitted. We therefore retaliated with light missiles on high-angle setting to clear the mountains round the Copernicus crater. Again as you will know, the low gravity here gives a wide margin of error for such an attempt, and our missiles were ineffective. The Americans attempted to reply with similar missiles, and they, too, were highly inaccurate. There was slight damage to one of our launching ramps, but no more.

  ‘Then one of our Satellite Stations which chanced to be in a favourable position dispatched two heavy missiles. The first they reported as being two miles off target; for the second, they claimed a direct hit. This would seem to be a valid claim, for the American Station ceased at once to communicate, and has shown no sign of life since.

  ‘A reprisal attack on our own station from the American Satellite was to be expected, and it came in the form of one heavy missile which landed within a mile of us. Our chief damage was fractures in the walls of the upper chambers, causing a considerable air-leakage. We had to close them off with bulkheads while we sent men in space-suits to caulk the larger fissures and spray the walls and roofs with plastic sealing compound. The area of damage was extensive, and the work was hampered by falls from the roof, so that I decided to remain incommunicado, in the hope of attracting no more missiles until we had stopped the leaks. It was to be hoped, too, that now the Satellites had been brought into the action ours might succeed in crippling the American with their wasps by the time we had made good.’

  ‘Wasps?’ somebody interrupted.