Operation Moon Rocket (6 page)

"Still a bit disoriented." He spoke with a pronounced Kansas twang — the result of sitting three hours with a tape-recording of Eglund's voice plugged into his ear.

"That's to be expected, Colonel."

He watched the pulse beating in her slim throat. She didn't look away from him but the smile was gone and her dark eyes were strangely bright.

Major Sollitz glanced at his watch. "He's all yours, Dr. Sun," he said in clipped, precise tones. "I'm running late for the o-nine-hundred meeting. Let me know if any problems crop up." He turned abruptly on his heel and marched off. There were no waste motions with Sollitz. A ramrod-stiff veteran of the Flying Tigers and a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines, he was almost a caricature of militarism run rampant.

General McAlester had been worried about sneaking Nick past him. "He's sharp," he'd said while visiting Nick in Eglund's Lawndale Road apartment that morning. "Very sharp. So don't relax around him for even a second. Because if he tumbles to the fact that you're not Eglund, he'll push the alarm button and blow your cover higher than the Washington Monument." But when Nick had reported to the Major's office, it had gone off like a charm. Sollitz had been so surprised to see him that he'd put him through only the most perfunctory of security checks.

"Follow me, please," said Dr. Sun.

Nick fell in behind her, automatically noting the smooth, limber movement of her hips, the length of her long, firm legs. The opposition, he decided, was getting better and better looking.

Opposition she was, though. No doubt about it. And maybe a killer, too. He remembered Hawk's phrase: "He,
or she,
will try again." And so far it all pointed to "she." The person who'd tried to kill Eglund had to be, (first,) someone with access to the Medical Research Section and (second,) someone with scientific training, particularly in the chemistry of extra-terrestrial life support. Someone who knew that a certain quantity of extra nitrogen would mix with the ammonia from human sweat to form deadly Amine gas. Dr. Sun, Medical Research Chief of Project Apollo, had the access and the training, and her special field was maintaining human life in outer space.

She opened the door of a small anteroom and stood aside, motioning to Nick. "Take off your clothes, please. I'll be right with you."

Nick swung toward her, his nerves suddenly tight. Forcing his tone to remain casual, he said, "Is this absolutely necessary? I mean Walter Reed released me, and a copy of their report is on its way to you."

The smile was faintly mocking. It started in the eyes, then touched her mouth. "Don't be shy, Colonel Eglund. It won't be the first time I've seen you naked, after all."

That was exactly what Nick was afraid of. He had scars on his body he was sure Eglund never had. Poindexter had done nothing about them, for this was a completely unexpected development. Editing's Documents Section had worked up a phony medical report on Walter Reed stationery. They had figured that would be enough, that NASA Medical would only test his sight, hearing, motor reactions and sense of balance.

Nick got undressed and laid his things across a chair. Pointless to resist. "Eglund" couldn't return to training until he'd received a medical fitness okay from Dr. Sun. He heard a door open and close. High heels clicked toward him. The plastic curtains were drawn aside. "The shorts, too, please," she said. Reluctantly, he slid them off. "Step out here, please."

In the middle of the room was an odd-looking surgical couch made of leather and gleaming aluminum. Nick didn't like the look of it. He felt more than naked. He felt vulnerable. The stiletto he usually carried up his sleeve, the gas bomb that usually nestled in his pocket, the stripped-down Luger he called Wilhelmina, all his usual "protective devices" were far away — at AXE headquarters in Washington where he'd left them before going on vacation. If the doors suddenly burst open and fifty armed men leaped in, he'd be forced to fight with the only weapon at hand — his body.

It was lethal enough, though. Even in repose, it was streamlined, muscular, dangerous-looking. The hard, tanned flesh was creased with old scars. The muscles were etched against the bones. The hands were big, thick, knotted with veins. They looked made for violence — as befitted a man whose code name was Killmaster.

Dr. Sun's eyes widened perceptibly as he walked across the room toward her. They remained riveted on his midsection — and he was damned sure it wasn't just his physique that she found so fascinating. It was the mementos of a half-dozen knives and bullets. A dead giveaway.

He had to divert her attention. Eglund was a bachelor. His dossier had mentioned that he was a skirt-chaser, something of a wolf in astronaut's clothing. So what could be more natural? A man and an attractive woman alone together in a room, the man naked...

He didn't stop when he reached her, but suddenly pressed her back against the surgical table, his hands reaching up under her skirt as he kissed her, his mouth hard and brutal against hers. It was a crude performance and it got the hand it deserved — right across his face, momentarily stunning him.

"You animal!" She stood pressed against the table, the back of her hand to her mouth. Her eyes glinted white with outrage, fear, anger and a dozen other emotions, none of them pleasant. Looking at her now, he had trouble connecting Joy Sun with the frenzied, wanton girl in that pornographic photo.

"I warned you about this once before, Colonel." Her mouth shook. She was on the verge of tears. "I'm not the kind of woman you seem to think I am. I will not tolerate these cheap seductions..."

The maneuver had the desired effect. All thoughts of a physical exam were forgotten. "Please get dressed," she said icily. "It's obvious that you're completely recovered. You will report to the Training Coordinator, then join your teammates over at the Simulation Building."

The sky behind the range of jagged peaks was midnight black, pinpointed with stars. The terrain between was rolling, crater-pocked, dotted with spiky outcroppings and splinter-sharp fragments of stone. Steep canyons crisscrossed the rubble-strewn mesa like petrified bolts of lightning.

Cautiously Nick climbed down the gold-plated ladder attached to one of the LM's four legs. At the bottom he placed one foot on the edge of the dish-shaped pad and stepped out onto the surface of the moon.

The dust layer underfoot had the consistency of crunchy snow. Slowly he placed one boot in front of the other, then just as slowly repeated the process. Gradually he began to walk. It was tough going. Endless pot holes and sprouts of congealed rock slowed him down. Every step was uncertain, a fall dangerous.

In his ears was a steady, loud hissing sound. It came from the pressurizing, breathing, cooling and drying systems of his rubberized moon suit. He moved his head from side to side inside the close-fitting plastic helmet, looking for the others. The light was blinding. He brought his right-hand thermal mitten up and lowered one of the sun-filtering visors.

The voice in his earphones said, ''Welcome back to the Rock Pile, Colonel. We're over here, on the edge of the Ocean of Storms. No, not that way — to your right."

Nick turned and saw the two figures in their bulky moon suits waving to him. He waved back. "Roger, John," he said into his mike. "Good to see you, good to be back. I'm still a bit disoriented. You'll have to bear with me."

He was glad he was meeting them this way. Who could tell anyone's identity through sixty-five pounds of rubber, nylon and plastic?

Earlier in the Lunar Simulation ready room, he'd had a close call. Gordon Nash, captain of the first reserve team of Apollo astronauts, had stopped by to see him. "Did Lucy get to see you in the hospital?" he'd asked, and Nick, misreading his sly grin, had thought he was referring to one of Eglund's girlfriends. He'd made a faintly off-color crack and had been surprised to see Nash frown. Too late, he'd remembered the dossier — Lucy was Eglund's younger sister and Gordon Nash's current romantic interest. He'd managed to alibi his way out of it ("Just kidding, Gord"), but it had been close. Too close.

One of Nick's teammates was collecting rocks from the lunar surface and stashing them in a metal collection box while the other one squatted over a seismograph-like device, recording the agitated flutterings of its needle. Nick stood watching them for a few minutes, uncomfortably aware that he didn't have the slightest idea of what he should be doing. Finally the one working with the seismograph glanced up. "Hadn't you better check out the LRV?" His voice crackled in N3's earphones.

"Right." Nick's ten-hour education had included this term — fortunately. LRV stood for Lunar Roving Vehicle. It was a moon car powered by fuel cells that rode on special cylindrical wheels with spiral blades instead of spokes. It was designed to be landed on the moon ahead of the astronauts, so it had to be parked somewhere on this sprawling ten-acre simulation of the moon's surface that lay at the heart of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

Nick moved out across the barren, forbidding terrain. The pumice-like surface beneath his feet was brittle, sharp, full of hidden holes and jagged outcroppings. Walking on it was torture. "It's probably still over in the ravine at R-12," the voice in his ear said. "The first team was working with it there yesterday."

Where in hell was R-12? Nick wondered. But a moment later he happened to look up and there, along the edge of the great black, star-punctured roof of the Simulation Building, he saw grid-marks running from one to twenty-six and, along the outer edge, from A to Z. Luck was still with him.

It took him close to half an hour to reach the ravine although it was only a few hundred yards from the Lunar Module. The problem was reduced gravity. The scientists who'd constructed the artificial moonscape had reproduced every condition to be found on the real thing: A temperature range of five hundred degrees, the most intense vacuum yet to be created by man, and feeble gravity — only one-sixth as strong as the earth's. That made it almost impossible to keep one's balance. Although Nick could lope along with ease, even go gliding through the air for hundreds of feet if he chose, he didn't dare move at more than a slow crawl. The terrain was too rugged, too uncertain, and there was no way of coming to a sudden stop.

The ravine was almost fifteen feet deep and steep-sided. It ran in a tight, zigzag pattern, its bottom gouged and pitted by hundreds of artificial meteorites. There was no sign of the Lunar Vehicle at Grid 12, but that didn't mean much. It could be only a few yards away, hidden from view.

Cautiously Nick edged his way down the steep flank, testing each hand- and foothold before putting his entire weight on it. Tiny meteorite pebbles went bouncing down ahead of him, dislodged by his boots. When he reached the floor of the ravine, he turned left, heading toward Grid 11. He moved slowly, picking his way over the tortured convolutions and spiky outcroppings of a simulated ash flow.

Because of the steady hissing sound in his ears and because of the vacuum outside his suit, he didn't hear anything behind him. But he either saw or sensed a sudden flash of motion and turned.

A shapeless thing with two glaring orange eyes came bearing down on him. It turned into a giant insect, then a weird four-wheeled vehicle and he saw a man in a moon suit similar to his sitting at the controls. Nick waved his arms wildly, then realized that the man had seen him and had purposely put on an extra burst of speed.

There was no escape.

The Lunar Vehicle came hurtling toward him, its huge cylindrical wheels with their razor-sharp spiral blades filling the ravine from wall to wall...

Nick knew what would happen if those blades tore his suit.

Outside, the simulated two-week lunar day was only minutes short of high noon. The temperature was 250°F. Higher than the boiling point of water — higher than that of human blood, too. Add to this a vacuum so intense that pieces of metal welded themselves together spontaneously when they came in contact, and you had a phenomenon known to scientists as "ebullition."

This meant that the interior of the exposed human body would boil. Bubbles would begin to form — first in the mucous lining of the mouth and eyes, then in the tissues of other vital organs. Death would occur within minutes.

He had to keep clear of those flashing, blade-like spokes. But there was no room on either side. Only one thing was possible. Hit the ground, let the monstrous three-ton vehicle roll over him. Its weight in the gravity-free vacuum atmosphere was only half a ton and this was further modified by the wheels which flattened out at the bottom like soft tires in order to achieve traction.

There was a slight depression a few feet behind him. He swung around and went sprawling into it, face down, fingers clawing at the scoriaceous volcanic rock. His head inside the plastic bubble was the most vulnerable part of him. But it was lined up with the space between the wheels and the ravine was too narrow for any maneuvering by the LRV. His luck was still running.

Silently it came rolling over him, blotting out the light Intense pressure slammed into his back and legs, crushing him against the rock. The breath exploded from his lungs. His vision momentarily dimmed. Then the first set of wheels had passed over him and he was lying in the rushing darkness beneath the 31-foot-long vehicle, watching the second set come hurtling toward him.

He saw it too late. A low-hanging box-like piece of equipment. It slammed against his ECM backpack, spinning him over. He felt the pack torn from his shoulders. The hissing in his ears stopped abruptly. Heat seared his lungs. Then the second wheels crushed into him and pain exploded through him like a black cloud.

He held onto a thin thread of consciousness because he knew he was finished if he didn't. Intense light scorched his eyes. He struggled sluggishly upward through physical torment, searching for the vehicle. Slowly his eyes stopped swimming and focused on it. It was some fifty yards past him and no longer moving. The man in the moon suit stood atop the control box, looking back at him.