DARK came as if someone had shut off an electric light in a coal cellar. The moment was well chosen. Dark wouldn’t come in such a fashion to this place again for twenty-nine and a half days, nor would it be light again until half that period had passed.
Soon it would get very cold, down to minus two hundred centigrade. These space suits were designed for that but they used up their batteries very quickly despite the eight thicknesses of asbestos on their outsides.
“Let’s go,” said Angel. “They may try a foray on their own.” The earthlight was wiped out by their colored helmets.
As nearly as they could calculate they covered the proper chart distances in a wide triangle which would bring them up the side of the alert post.
Soundlessly they made their debouch, fortunately having to take no care of tumbled meteor fragments beyond falling. And a fall was far from fatal.
They came to the slope and groped their way up.
Something round bumped Angel. He felt it and found it to be a metal pole. Some sort of aerial or light stand. He wondered if the Russians had shifted to other helmets which would permit them to see him in the earthlight. That he was still alive made him think not.
He felt the man-made smoothness of the pit edge and drew back. He stopped Whittaker and toothed out the pin of a grenade.
Rapidly they hurled four. The pumice shook like jelly under them under four explosions.
They dived over the edge. Only one Russian was there and nothing much of him was remaining.
“They tried a foray,” said Angel. He threw on his chest lights and the metal escape door gleamed.
They lifted it swiftly and plunged down the steps, closing it behind them. An airlock was before them.
“Keep your helmet on,” said Angel. He went through.
At the third door they paused and took the safeties off their Tommy guns. They went through alertly. But no one barred their way and they entered the main tunnel. To their right they could see their big ports beyond which stood their ship.
Supplies were scattered along the walls. Space suits hung on pegs. Weapons were racked.
“Come along,” said Angel.
They confronted the first series of doors which led to Slavinsky. In the first, second and third chambers they found no one. The fourth was locked.
Angel waved Whittaker back and from the second chamber sighted with the bazooka on the locked door.
“Look alive in case anybody comes,” said Angel.
Whittaker placed the missile and then stepped aside, Tommy gun ready.
The trajectory of the rocket flamed out. Smoke and dust dissolved the far door. The echoing concussion buffeted them, unheard through their suits.
Angel was up with a rush, cleaving the billows of cordite. His charge brought him straight into the inner sanctum.
And there, pistol gripped but flung back, was Slavinsky.
The black eyes glared. The yellow teeth showed. Whatever he yelled Angel could not hear. The pistol jerked and a cartridge empty flipped up.
Angel chopped down with the Tommy gun.
And discovered the engineering fact that metal still fifty degrees below zero centigrade does not work well. The firing pin fell short.
The lucite casque fanned out a gauzy pattern but the slug did not penetrate, leaving only a blot.
Angel threw the gun straight at Slavinsky’s head. Slavinsky ducked the weapon. But he did not duck the chair which followed it. He staggered back, losing his grip on the pistol.
In Angel’s radio, Whittaker’s voice yelled, “Three Ruskies are comin’!”
“Use a grenade!” cried Angel. And he flung himself bodily upon Slavinsky.
The metal mittens were clumsy and could not find the general’s throat. Slavinsky got a heel into Angel’s belt and catapulted him with a smash against the ceiling.
Angel flung himself back. Slavinsky’s naked torso was nothing to grip.
“Get him!” howled Whittaker. “They got us penned in!”
Angel grabbed for the sling of the Tommy gun. The weapon leaped up, amazingly light. But it had mass and mass counted. He drove the butt through Slavinsky’s guard, drove in the teeth, the nose, brought sheets of blood into the eyes, crushed the jutting jaw and obliterated the face.
He spun about to find Whittaker holding a bulging door. Angel reached into his kit and pulled out a flask.
“Let them in!”
“They’re in!” roared Whittaker.
The bottle of lewisite exploded against the wall beside the first Russian, spraying out over his naked skin.
The rest plowed forward. They plowed, caught their throats, strangled and dropped.
Angel turned and popped a space cloak and helmet on the remains of Slavinsky. He wanted him alive before the gas reached clear across the chamber. “Stay here,” said Angel. And he plunged out.
He found Boyd in a cell, safe enough, carefully garbed in his space helmet.
“It was horrible,” said Boyd. “The fools grabbed those cigarettes like you said they would. They distributed all of them to everybody but Slavinsky and he hits marijuana instead. And then they started to light up. Even them that didn’t get to take a puff got it from the rest. Lootenant, don’t never feed me no lewisite cigarette!”
“Anybody else you know of back here?” said Angel sweetly.
“Whoever survived rushed up to where you came in. Geez, Lootenant, what if that had missed?”
“We’d be working in St. Peter’s army,” grinned Angel. “Keep that helmet on. This whole place must be full of gas.”
They went back to Slavinsky’s office and from there made way into the communications center.
Boyd set the wave lengths and called.
When they had Washington as though they were Russians, Angel took the aircraft code from his kit and began to give them news that Russia wouldn’t know in time.
“We have met Slavinsky,” he coded. “I am in possession of this objective and require reinforcements immediately. The enemy is dead except for stragglers outside who will die. Tell the highest in command to send force quickly. We are victorious!”
Whittaker put an affectionate hand on Angel’s shoulder and shook it gently. Angel felt terrible.
“Lieutenant,” said the surgeon, “you’d better come around. It’s nearly time.”
The watch on his wrist gleamed as hugely as a steeple clock and said, “Zero three fifty-one” in an unnecessarily loud voice.
He was dressed somehow and they shoved him into the corridor, which was at least half the distance to Mars. A potted palm fell down and became a general.
“Fine morning, fine morning, Lieutenant. You look fit. Fit, sir. No clouds and a splendid full moon.”
The aide was brilliant. Angel knew him well. The aide had been an upperclassman when Angel was at the Point.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the aide sidewise to the general. “But we’ve just time to brief him as we ride down. Here, this way, Lieutenant.”
When they were in the car the aide said, “You have been thoroughly briefed before. But there must be a quick resumé unless you think you are thoroughly cognizant of your duties.”
Angel would have answered but all that came out was a groan.
“You will phone all data back to us. Our tests show that the wave can travel much farther than that. Anything you may think important, beyond maps and perhaps geology, you are permitted to note and report.
“Under no circumstances are you to attempt to change any control settings in your ship. All instructions are in this packet.”
Angel shoved the brown packet into his pocket with a twinge of pain. What a hangover. And what a dreadfully confused night he had had!
Colonel Anthony got him out of the car, through the crowd and up the ladder.
Whittaker was standing there, indolently chewing tobacco. Metal glinted behind them in the interior. Commander Dawson of the Navy prowled around the ship and then went to take his post.
“You’ve got a week to sober up, my boy,” said Anthony.
“I’ll be fine,” said Angel, managing a smile.
Angel stepped from the ladder to the platform.
“Board!” shouted Dawson.
Floodlights and cameras and upraised faces. There was a hushed, awed stillness.
Boyd had a big pair of glasses fixed upon the full moon. He was adjusting them to get the proper focus. Suddenly Angel grabbed the glasses away and stabbed them at the brilliant orb.
With a little sigh of relief he gave the glasses back and with a wave of his hand to the crowd, entered the ship.
The door closed. The spectators were waved hurriedly back.
There was a crash of jets, a flash of metal.
The spaceship was gone.
In spite of nightmares and hangovers, Man had begun his first flight into outer space.