Saucer: The Conquest (9 page)

“Yeah, baby!”

Charley Pine pumped her fist and headed for the air lock, which was in the side of a cliff. She promptly fell. It was a slow-motion fall, at one-sixth the speed that she would have toppled on earth. Instantly she was all business. Impact with a sharp stone might tear the outer shell and damage the interior pressure suit. If the interior suit lost pressure, her blood would transform itself into a gas; death would follow in seconds.

She had come too far to die in a freak accident between the spaceplane and the base air lock. Adrenaline pumping, she caught herself with her gloved hands, then pushed herself back erect.

Concentrating fiercely, taking care not to overcontrol, Charley walked—or leaped—toward the air lock and entered it. She had to wait for a forklift to bring a container from Jeanne d’Arc into the lock; then the door closed and the operator on the other side of the thick glass began pumping in air.

The air lock led into an underground cavern that had been carved from solid rock. Supplies in containers were stacked along one side of the capacious corridor. Charley stopped to remove her helmet and looked the containers over as she walked toward the locker room. The containers were stacked with their numbers facing out. She was looking for a specific four-digit final number, and didn’t see it. The reactor was still on the plane.

After wriggling out of her space suit—one of the base personnel helped her and chatted freely while she did it—Charley got directions to the mess hall.

Just moving along the corridors took a great deal of getting used to. Too vigorous a step would send her to the ceiling; a misstep would send her crashing into a wall. Clearly the lunar gravity was going to take some getting used to. The people she met seemed to have adjusted well, so perhaps the learning curve would be steep.

In the mess hall, which doubled as a lounge, she filled a tray made of superlight, composite material with a judicious quantity of food—better keep an eye on the figure. The food was French, and yet it wasn’t what she had eaten in France. One of the cooks, or chefs, was replenishing a warmer, so she asked, “How do you cook in this gravity?”

“It is difficult,” he replied with a grin. “The food is not pressing down. We use a pressure cooker for most things, except the sauces. The sauces are difficult.”

“I suppose so.”

She stood looking around. There were several televisions; they seemed to be running programs from French television, likely sent to an earth satellite and rebroadcast. In one corner of the room was a camera, mounted so that the background was the entire room, which was probably the largest on the lunar base.

She saw Claudine Courbet at a table with two other women and joined them, carefully. Tossing the contents of her tray on the diners would be a poor start to her visit.

One of the women was a geologist, the other an electrical engineer. Both welcomed her and smiled when they heard her accent. Before long all four women were chatting merrily about their voyages to the moon and life at the lunar base.

“I know you have been drilling for water,” Charley said to the geologist. “Have you found any?”

“Yes and no. There are ice crystals well below the surface. Not huge chunks, but crystals. We have extracted some and recovered perhaps a hundred liters. To become self-sustaining and build up a surplus we must mine the material in quantity and bake it to extract the water.”

“It must be really old stuff,” Charley said. “Is it any good?”

The geologist grinned and removed a small bottle from a pocket. She handed it to Charley. “Try it.”

Charley hefted the bottle, swallowed hard, then unscrewed the cap and took a tentative sip. The water was cool and delicious. A look of relief crossed her face, and the other women laughed.

“That first sip is always an act of faith,” the geologist said as Charley handed back the bottle.

“How did the water come to be there?”

“That is another question,” the geologist admitted. She was deep into the various possibilities when a runner came looking for Charley.

Pierre Artois wanted her for a televised news conference in the communications room, which, in addition to sophisticated computers and transmitters, contained a small television studio with a moonscape mural on the rock wall as a backdrop.

Madame Artois was there, off camera. She was at least ten years younger than Pierre, a beautiful woman with a figure that her jumpsuit didn’t hide. She shook Charley’s hand and murmured something Charley didn’t catch; then the cameras came on and the pilot was ushered to a seat.

Reporters in Paris asked her numerous questions, about the flight, the lunar base, and her initial impressions of the moon. She answered as best she could, regaled them with an account of her klutzy fall and bowed out of further questions. Artois smoothly interceded. As soon as she was off camera, Charley found herself standing beside Julie Artois, who listened intently to every question and answer.

Every now and then Pierre glanced at his wife, and Charley realized with a start that Julie was giving Pierre sub-de clues on how to frame his answers through the use of body language. When she thought an answer had gone on long enough, she made a tiny circle with one finger, once against her cheek, once with her hand by her leg.

Pierre was still answering questions when Charley wandered away to explore. As she left the room Henri Salmon, the base commander, followed her out. “Welcome to the moon, Mademoiselle Pine. I trust you have found our accommodations agreeable?”

“Like the Ritz.”

Salmon didn’t grin. He was a wiry, fit man with close-cropped blond hair, togged out in the blue jumpsuit that all the lunar base personnel wore. His was not as tight fitting as the others’, Charley noted.

“If you will permit, I will give you a tour of our facilities,” Salmon said.

“Lead on,” Charley replied.

Salmon went into a monologue about the base and its systems, explaining with the pride of ownership. Charley reflected that Salmon had arrived on the very first space-plane to the moon and never left. He had been here over six months and had personally supervised every phase of construction. In truth, he practically owned the base.

“The lunar base is lit during the clock day with metal halide lights, which as you see generate entirely white light, artificial sunlight, if you will, which provides us with vitamin D. During the twelve-hour clock night, we illuminate the base with red light to keep people on a proper night and day cycle.”

The underground base reminded Charley of a hard-rock mine she toured once on a geology lab field trip. The rock from which it had been quarried was hard lava that lacked cracks or faults. Still, air did leak in minute amounts, Salmon said, so there were some imperfections in the stone. Fire and general emergency alarms were located side-by-side every fifty feet along the corridor walls, alongside emergency oxygen bottles.

She watched the well drilling, looked in the generator room, watched sewage being recycled to extract the water, spent a few minutes in the atmosphere room where the air was scrubbed and enhanced with oxygen and hydrogen as required, and visited the gymnasium.

“A sixth of earth’s gravity is insufficient to maintain the muscle tone required to keep the human body healthy over long periods,” Salmon explained. “Everyone at the base is required to spend an hour a day exercising in this room, regardless of other duties.” He demonstrated the gym equipment for Charley. “Transporting weights to the moon would have been outrageously expensive, so we brought these machines that rely on spring tension to supply the resistance. The amount of effort involved is unrelated to gravity.” Salmon moved the heaviest weight without much apparent effort, Charley thought, which proved that he did spend his hour a day here.

There was also a set of barbells in the room, but the weights on the ends of the bars were huge rocks. Salmon saw her inspecting one and urged, “Pick it up. Carefully.”

Charley set herself and jerked the bar. It seemed to weigh about a hundred pounds, she estimated, so on earth it would weigh six times that much. When she set it down she laughed. “I wish I had a photo of me lifting that. I would look like Superwoman.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Salmon said, deadpan. Charley wondered if he ever smiled.

Salmon led her to the science lab and explained some of the experiments as the technicians worked.

“We have found water on the moon,” Salmon said, “and we will find more. But the primary purpose of the lunar base, its real justification, is this laboratory, where our scientists are working on creating complex organic compounds.”

Charley stood looking at the computers, ovens, test tubes, retorts and other lab gear. “Trying to make food, I suppose.”

“Precisely,” Salmon said. “Has someone told you about our research?”

“No. But one of the main problems with interstellar space flight, and to a lesser extent bases on the moon or other planets, is going to be food. The astronauts are going to have to make food from waste products, including human wastes, or they’ll eventually starve.”

“Precisely,” Salmon admitted grudgingly. “Our laboratory is already manufacturing more complex organic molecules than can be made in earth’s gravitational field. We progress.”

“Think of the possibilities,” Charley enthused. “Throw some old newspapers and ratty jeans in the microwave, and half an hour later out pops a souffle covered with a delicate sauce.”

Salmon eyed her suspiciously and led her from the lab.

They visited the medical bay. Lalouette was out of surgery and recovering, although he was still asleep. They casually inspected the sleeping quarters. All the women were in one dormitory room. Oh, well, she was only going to be here about ten days, then she was going back to earth with Lalouette, assuming he had recovered enough to stand the G forces.

On one corridor they found a large dust curtain. Entering, Charley and Salmon saw a crew busy quarrying rock, enlarging the base. Powerful air scrubbers captured the dust. Two men in hard hats ran the machines that ate at the rock. Joe Bob Hooker was standing beside one of the roaring air scrubbers smoking a green Churchill cigar. “This is the only place they’ll let me smoke,” he explained loudly to Charley as Salmon conferred with the workers. “They say the smoke will set off the fire alarms.”

Charley met people everywhere and heard more names than she could ever remember.

She and Salmon were traversing a corridor that penetrated deeply into the cliff when they passed a door marked NO ADMITTANCE TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. The door had a keypad that allowed access. Power cables penetrated the metal bulkhead in which the door was set along one wall, as well as ducts to pipe air in and bring it out. “What’s in there?” she asked her guide.

“More experiments. We must keep the room scrupulously clean.”

Charley didn’t argue. And she didn’t believe him.

So what was behind the door? Was that the destination of the reactor? Why in the world did Pierre Artois need a nuclear reactor on the moon? Electrical power was the only possible answer, but why so much?

“Why are you here?” she asked Salmon.

“I make it all work,” he replied casually.

“That is what you do. But why are you here?”

He stopped, turned and scrutinized her face. “You are the first person who ever asked.”

“Oh.”

Salmon took a deep breath as he thought about the question. “Most people have little dreams, with small goals. They lead small, unimportant lives. Pierre’s dream is huge, and he has devoted himself to it body and soul. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

Salmon was intense. “Even if he ultimately fails, he has tried mightily. And the attempt has made him great.”

“Like Don Quixote, perhaps.”

Salmon didn’t think much of that analogy. He merely grunted and resumed walking.

“And your dream?” Charley asked.

“Pierre’s dream has made him great. And if we believe, he will make us great, too.”

The messiah on the moon, Charley thought, although she didn’t say that to Henri Salmon. He had his dream and she had hers, which was to fly. My dream is big enough for me, she told herself.

In the mess hall Salmon bid her a curt good-bye and walked away. “Interesting,” she muttered aloud. His jumpsuit bulged under his armpit. Henri Salmon was wearing a pistol. Whatever for, she wondered.

Her lack of sleep was catching up with her. She made her way to the women’s dorm and leaped into her bed, which didn’t collapse.

• • •

Charley Pine was sitting in the dining area after her long nap when Florentin found her. He sat down beside her with his tray. “It was the heater in the main engine,” he reported. “It froze up. I’ve reset the circuit breaker. Seems fine now.”

“Why did it freeze?” Charley asked between bites.

“That I don’t know. I’ve inspected everything I can inspect, and I can’t find anything wrong.”

“Could not duplicate the gripe,” Charley muttered in English, then smiled at Florentin. He was the expert on the spaceplane. If he couldn’t find the glitch, no one else at the lunar base would either. Some problems a pilot simply has to live with. Fortunately they wouldn’t need the main engine to get back to earth. The main burns would be longer, but the computer could arrive at the proper trajectory to account for that.

“How are they coming on getting the cargo unloaded?” she asked.

“Another twenty-four hours or so. Then, Salmon says, they will begin loading the science experiments for the trip back.”

“Terrific.”

“So how do you like the moon?”

“Reminds me of a cave.”

“Yes,” he said with a grin. “We call it Cave Base. Do not say that to the press, though. Monsieur Artois is selling the glamour.”

“Speaking of glamour,” Charley said as Joe Bob Hooker came over carrying a tray and sat down with them. “Hello, Mr. Hooker.”

“Call me Joe Bob. Well, whaddaya think?”

Florentin mumbled an excuse and took his tray to another table, where he sat with a collection of technicians.

“What this place needs is a golf course,” Charley said to Joe Bob, just to make conversation.