The Planet Strappers Part 16

"He put even you on a short string, kid," he p.r.o.nounced bitterly, after a moment. "Well, at least we can give you his nuclear battery for a while, and let him have his chemical cell back."

Helen seemed about to attack him. But then her look wavered; confusion and pain came into her face.

Nelsen was aware that he was doing almost all of the talking, but maybe this had to be.

"So we've got a long walk," he said. "Toward the Tovie settlement. In Archers of mostly much-reduced range. Whose fault the situation is, can't change anything a bit. This is a life-or-death proposition, with lasting-time the most important factor. So let's get started. Has anybody got any suggestions to increase our chances?"

Both Rodan and Dutch had come to. Rodan said nothing. His look was pure poison.

Dutch sneered. "Smart d.a.m.n kid you are, huh, Nelsen? _You think!_ Wait till you and your mumblin' crackpot pal get out there! I'll watch both of you go bust, squirt!"

Lester seemed not to hear these remarks. "All that gypsum, Frank," he said. "The water-and-oxygen mineral. But this is for real. There's no gimmick--no energy-source--to release it and save us..."

Frank Nelsen untied Rodan's and Dutch's feet, and, at pistol point, ordered them to move out ahead. From the charts he knew the bearing--straight toward the constellation Ca.s.siopeia, at this hour, across an arm of Mare Nova, then along a pa.s.s that cut through the mountains. Eight hundred hopeless miles...! Well, how did he know, really? How much could a human body take? How fast could they go? How long would the chemical batteries actually last? What breaks _might_ appear?

They loped along, even Rodan hurrying. They made a hundred miles in the hours before darkness. With just Helen's shoulder lamp showing the way, they continued onward through the mountains.

Was there truly much to tell, in that slow, losing struggle? Nelsen attached the oxygen flask to his air system for a while, relieving the drain on his battery. Then he gave the flask to Lester. Later he began to move the nuclear battery around to all the Archers, to conserve all of the other batteries a little. Soon they filled the drinking-water tanks of their armor, so that they could discard the flask, whose slight weight seemed to have tripled.

After twenty hours, the power of the chemical batteries began to wane.

David Lester, hovering close to Helen, muttered to himself, or to her.

Rodan, still marching quite strongly, retreated into an unreality of his own.

"Have another scotch on the rocks, Ralph," he said genially. "I knew I'd make it... n.o.bel Prize... Oh, you have no idea what I went through...

Most of my staff dead... But it's over, now, Ralph... Another good, stomach-warming scotch..."

"d.a.m.n, loony squirt's crackin' up!" Dutch screamed suddenly.

He began to run, promptly falling into a volcanic crack, the bottom of which couldn't even be found with the light. Fortunately he wasn't wearing the nuclear battery just then.

Somehow, Lester remained cool. It was as if, with everyone else scared, too, and n.o.body to show superior courage, he had found himself.

The batteries waned further. The cold of the inky lunar night--much worse than that of interplanetary s.p.a.ce, where there is practically always suns.h.i.+ne, began to bite through the insulation of the Archers, and power couldn't be wasted on the heating coils.

Worst was the need for rest. They all lay down at last, except Frank Nelsen, who moved around, clipping the nuclear battery into one Archer for a minute, to freshen the air, and then into another. It was the only trick--or gimmick--that they found. After a while, Lester made the rounds, while Nelsen rested.

They got a few more miles by swapping batteries in quick succession. But the acc.u.mulating carbon dioxide in the air they breathed, made them sleepier. They had to sit down, then lie down. Frank figured that they had come something over a quarter of the eight hundred miles. This was about the end of Frank Nelsen, would-be Planet Strapper from Jarviston, Minnesota. Well--his coffin would be a common one--an Archer Five...

Somehow, he thought of a line from Kipling: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

He tried to clip the nuclear battery back in Helen's armor, again. She _might_ make the remaining five hundred-something miles, alone...! He just barely managed to accomplish it... There was still a little juice, from his chemical cell, feeding his helmet phone... Now, he thought he heard someone singing raucously one of those improvised doggerel songs of s.p.a.cemen and Moonmen... Folklore, almost...

"If this G.o.ddam dust

Just holds its crust,

I'll get on to h.e.l.l

If my gear don't bust..."

"Hey!" Nelsen gurgled thickly into his phone. "Hey..." Then it was as if he sort of sank...

h.e.l.l was real, all right, because, with needles in his eyes and all through his body, Nelsen seemed to be goaded on by imps to crawl, in infinite weariness, through a hot steel pipe, to face Old Nick himself--or was it somebody he'd met before?

Maybe he asked, because he got an answer--from the grinning, freckled face bending over him, as he lay, armorless, on a sort of pallet, under the taut stellene roof of a Moontent.

"Sure Frankie--me, Gimp Hines, the itinerant trader and repairman of the lunar wilderness... What a switch--didn't think _you'd_ goof! The Bunch--especially Two-and-Two--couldn't contact you. So I was sort of looking, knowing about where you'd be. Just made it in time. Les and the girl, and that ornery professor-or-whatever, are right here, too--still knocked out with a devil-killer. You've been out twenty hours, yourself.

I'll fill you in on the news. Just shut up and drink up. Good Earth whiskey--a hundred bucks just to shoot a fifth into orbit."

Frank gulped and coughed. "Thanks, Gimp." His voice was like pumice.

"Shut up, I said!" Gimp ordered arrogantly. "About me--first. When I got to Serene, I could have convinced them I was worth a job. But I'm independent. I hocked my gear, bought some old parts, built myself a tractor and trailer, loaded it with water, oxygen, frozen vegetables, spare parts, cigarettes, pin-up pictures, liquor and so forth, and came travelling. I didn't forget tools. You'd be astonished by what you can sell and fix--and for what prices--out in the isolated areas, or what you can bring back. I even got a couple of emeralds as big as pigeon eggs. I'm getting myself a reputation, besides. What difference does just one good leg make--at only one-sixth Earth grav? You still hop along, even when you don't ride. And everywhere I go, I leave that left boot print behind in the dust, like a record that could last a thousand ages. I'm getting to be Left Foot, the legend."

Nelsen cleared his throat, found his voice. "c.o.c.ky, aren't you, Pal?" he chuckled. So another thing was happening in reverse from what most people had expected. Gimp Hines was finding a new, surer self, off the Earth.

"It's all right, Gimp," Nelsen added. "I figured that I saw your tracks and your tractor tread marks, up in the hills, just before I decided to break away from Rodan..."

Then he was telling the whole story.

"Yes, I was there," Gimp said at the end. "I missed you on the first pa.s.s, prospected for a couple of Earth-days, found a small copper deposit. High ground gave me a good position to receive short-wave messages--thought I heard your voices a couple of times. So I doubled back, and located what is left of Rodan's camp, and yours and Les'

initialed blastoff drums, which I've brought along in my trailer. Lucky a trader needs an atom-powered tractor that can move at night. I followed your tracks, though going through rough country, you were screened from my radio calls until I was almost on you. Though on my first pa.s.s, when you were still in camp, I guess I could have reached you by bouncing a beam off a mountain top, had I known... Well, it doesn't matter, now. I'm out of stock, again, and full of money--got to head back to Serene... You were trying for the Tovie station, eh?"

"What else could we do?"

"I see what you mean, Frank. If you could have made it, and missed getting shot by some trigger-happy guard--where a frontier isn't even supposed to exist--they probably would have held you for a while, and then let you go."

"About the rest of the Bunch?" Frank Nelsen prompted.

"The Kuzaks got to the Belt okay--though they had to fight off some rough and humorous characters. Storey reached his Mars. Charlie Reynolds and Two-and-Two got to Venus, and hooked up with the exploring expedition. Tiflin? Who knows?"

"Ramos?"

"Ah--a real disappointing case, Frank. Darn wild idiot who ought to be probing the farther reaches of the solar system, got himself a job in a chemical plant in Serene. A synthesizing retort exploded. He was burned pretty bad. Just out of the hospital when I last left. It was on account of a woman that he was on the Moon at all."

"Eileen, the Queen of Serene? Gimp!--is _that_ so, too?"

"Yep--sort of. Our Eileen. Back in Jarviston, Ramos found out that she was there. She's a good kid. Even admits that she hasn't got much compet.i.tion, on a mostly--yet--masculine world... Well, I guess we start rolling, eh? I didn't want to jolt any of you poor sick people, so I camped. Let's get you all into Archers, for which I have a few spare parts left. Then, after we roll up this sealed, air-conditioned tent of a familiar material, we can be on our way."

"Just let's watch Rodan--that's all," Frank Nelsen warned.

"Sure--we'll keep him good and dopey with a tranquilizer..."

They aroused Dave Lester and Helen Rodan, helped them armor up, explained briefly what the situation was, stuffed Xavier Rodan into his Archer, and climbed with him into the sealable cab of the tractor. Here they could all remove their helmets.

After several hours of b.u.mping over rugged country, with the tractor's headlights blazing through the star-topped blackness, they reached a solid trail over a mare. Then they could zip along, almost like on a highway. There were other rough stretches, but most of the well selected route was smooth. Half the time, Nelsen drove, while Gimp rested or slept. They ate s.p.a.ceman's gruel, heated on a little electric stove. And after a certain number of hours, they climbed over the side of the Moon, and made their own sunrise. After that, the going seemed easier.

Gimp and Frank were just about talked out, by then. Helen Rodan looked after her slumbering father. Otherwise, she and Lester seemed wrapped up in each other. Frank hardly listened to the few words they exchanged.

They kept peering eagerly and worriedly along the trail, that wound past fantastic scenery.