Master of the Moondog, Page 2

large for men. It might be a ship, but it would haveto be large enough for a space-yacht. No stinking two-man sled likehis spacer. And he could not be sure in that eerie blankness if iteven were a ship.

  Besides, the range was too great. Uncertainty vanished as a circle oflight showed briefly. An airlock door opened and closed swiftly.Denver stood clear of the rocks and wondered if he should riskanything further. Pursuit was useless with such arms as he carried. Noquestion of courage was involved. A man is not required to playquixotic fool under such circumstances. And there might not be time toreturn to his spacer for a long-range heat gun. If he tried to reachthe strange ship, its occupants could smoke him down before he coveredhalf the distance. If he continued toward the buildings, they mightreturn and stalk him. They would, he knew, if they guessed he wasalone.

  Decision was spared him. Rockets thundered. The ridge lighted up aswith magnesium flares. A big ship moved out of the banked shadows,accelerating swiftly. It was a space-yacht, black-hulled, and showedno insignia. It was fast, incredibly fast. He wasted one blastercharge after it, but missed focus by yards. He ducked out of sightamong the rocks as the ship dipped to skim low overhead. Then it wasgone, circling in stiff, steep spiral until it lost itself to sight indistant gorges.

  "Close!" Denver murmured. "Too close. And now what?"

  He quickly recharged the blaster. A series of sprawling leaps ate upthe remaining distance to the mine's living quarters. One whole side,where airlock doors had been, was now a gaping, ragged hole. A haze ofnearly invisible frost crystals still descended in slow showers. Itwas bitterly cold on the sharp, opaque edge of mountain-shadow.Thermal adjustors in his suiting stopped their irregular humming.Automatic units combined chemicals and began to operate against thebiting cold. With a premonition of ugly dread, Denver clambered intothe ruined building.

  Inside was airless, heatless cell, totally dark. Denver's gloved handsought a radilume-switch. Light blinked on as he fumbled the button.

  Death sat at a metal-topped table. Death wore the guise of a tall,gaunt, leathery man, no longer young. It was no pretty sight, thoughnot too unfamiliar a sight on Luna.

  The man had been writing. Frozen fingers still clutched a cylinderpen, and the nub adhered to the paper as the flow of ink hadstiffened. From nose, ears and mouth, streams of blood had congealedinto fat, crimson icicles. Rimes of ruby crystals ringedpressure-bulged eyes. He was complete, perfect, a tableau of cold,airless death.

  The paper was a claim record, registered in the name of Laird Martin,Earthman. An attached photograph matched what could be seen of facebehind its mask of frozen blood. Across the foot of the sheet was ahurried scrawl:

  _Claim jumpers. I know they'll get me. If I can hide this first, they will not get what they want. Where Mitre Peak's apex of shadow points at 2017 ET is the first of a series of deep-cut arrow markings. Follow. They lead to the entrance. Old Martian workings. Maybe something. Whoever finds this, see that my kid, Soleil, gets a share. She's in school on Earth. Address is 93-X south Palma--_

  The pen had stopped writing half-through the word. Death hadintervened hideously. Imagination could picture the scene as thatairlock wall disappeared in blinding, soundless flash. Or perhapsthere had been sound in the pressured atmosphere. His own arrival mayhave frightened off the claim jumpers, but too late to help thevictim, who sat so straight and hideous in the airless tomb.

  There was nothing to do. Airless cold would embalm the body until somebored official could come out from Crystal City to investigate themurder and pick up the hideous pieces. But if the killers returnedDenver made sure that nothing remained to guide them in their searchfor the secret mine worked long-ago by forgotten Martians. It wasLaird Martin's discovery and his dying legacy to a child on distantEarth.

  Denver picked up the document and wadded it clumsily into afold-pocket of his spacesuit. It might help the police locate theheir. In Martin's billfold was the child's picture, no more.

  Denver retraced his steps to the frosty airlock valve of his ship.Inside the cabin, Charley greeted his master's return with extravagantcaperings which wasted millions of electron volts.

  "Nobody home, Charley," Denver told the purring moondog, "but we'vepicked up a nasty errand to run."

  It was a bad habit, he reflected; talking to a moondog like that, buthe had picked up the habit from sheer loneliness of his prospectingamong the haunted desolations of the Moon. Even talking to Charleywas better than going nuts, he thought, and there was not too muchdanger of smart answers.

  He worked quickly, repairing the inadvertent damage Charley's piquehad caused. It took ten full minutes, and the heat-deadline was tooclose for comfort. He finished and breathed more freely astemperatures began to drop. He peeled off the helmet and unzipped thesuit which was reaching the thermal levels of a live-steam bath.

  He ran tape through the charger to impregnate electronic setting thatwould guide the ship on its course to Crystal City. "We were on ourway, there, anyhow," he mused. "I hope they've improved the jail. Itcould stand air-conditioning."

  II

  Crystal City made up in violence what it lacked in size. It was atypical boom town of the Lunar mining regions. Mining and a thrivingspacefreight trade in heavy metals made it a mecca for the toughestspace-screws and hardest living prospector-miners to be found in theinhabited worlds. Saloons and cheap lodging-houses, gambling dens andneon-washed palaces of expensive sin, the jail and a flourishingassortment of glittery funeral parlors faced each other across twomain intersecting streets. X marked the spot and life was the leastcostly of the many commodities offered for sale to rich-strike suckerswho funneled in from all Luna.

  The town occupied the cleared and leveled floor of a small ringwall"crater," and beneath its colorful dome of rainbowy perma-plastic, itsizzled. Dealers in mining equipment made overnight fortunes whichthey lost at the gaming tables just as quickly. In the streets onerubbed elbows with denizens from every part of the solar system; manyof them curiously not anthropomorphic. Glittering and paintedpurveyors of more tawdry and shopworn goods than mining equipment alsomade fortunes overnight, and some of them paid for their greedysnatching at luxury with their empty lives. Brawls were sporadic andusually fatal.

  Crystal City sizzled, and the Lunar Police sat on the lid as uneasilyas if the place were a charge of high-explosive. It was, but it madeliving conditions difficult for a policeman, and made thedesk-sergeant's temper extremely short.

  Tod Denver's experience with police stations had consisted chiefly ofuncomfortable stays as an invited, reluctant guest. To a hard-drinkingman, such invitations are both frequent and inescapable. So Tod Denverwas uneasy in the presence of such an obviously ill-tempered desksergeant. Memories are tender documents from past experience, andDenver's experiences had induced extreme sensitivity about jails.Especially Crystal City's jail.

  Briefly, he acquainted irritable officialdom with details of his findin the Appenines. The sergeant was fat, belligerent andunphilosophical.

  "You stink," said the sergeant, twisting his face into more repulsivesuggestion of a distorted rubber mask.

  Tod Denver tried to continue. The sergeant cut him off with a rudesuggestion.

  "So what?" added the official. "Suppose you did run into a murder. DoI care? Maybe you killed the old guy yourself and are trying to coverup. I don't know."

  He scowled speculatively at Denver who waited and worried.

  "Forget it," went on the sergeant. "We ain't got time to chase downeverybody that knocks off a lone prospector. There's a lot of punkslike you I'd like to bump myself right here in Crystal City. Even ifyou're telling the truth I don't believe you. If you'd thought he hadsomething valuable you'd have swiped it yourself, not come running tous. Don't bother me. If you got something, snag it. If not, shoveit--"

  The suggestion was detailed, anatomical.

  Charley giggled amiably. Startled, the sergeant looked up and caughtsight of the monstrosity. He shrieked.

  "What's
that?"

  "Charley, my moondog," Denver explained. "They're quite scarce here."

  Charley made eerie, chittering noises and settled on Denver'sshoulder, waiting for his master to stroke the filaments of his blunthead.

  "Looks like a cross between a bird and a carrot. Try making him scarcefrom my office."

  "Don't worry, he's housebroke."

  "Don't matter. Get him out of here, out of Crystal City. We have anordinance against pets. Unhealthy beasts. Disease-agents. They foul upthe atmosphere."

  "Not Charley," Denver argued hopelessly. "He's not animal; he's anatural air-purifier. Gives off ozone."

  "Two hours you've got to get him out of here. Two hours. Out of town.I hope you go with him. If he don't stink, you do. If