Tongues of the Moon Read online

  She gestured at the dead men. "The Axes got them, too?"

  "Yes," said Scone. "But I don't know if any Axes are in there."

  He pointed at the door to the control room.

  "If there were, we'd all be screaming with pain," said the captain. "Anyway, they would have had to take the key from the officer on guard."

  She looked suspiciously at the two, but Scone said, "You'll have to search him. I didn't touch him, of course."

  She dropped to one knee and unbuttoned the officer's inner coatpocket, which Scone had not neglected to rebutton after replacing the key.

  Rising with the key, she said, "I think you two must go back to the dome."

  Scone's face did not change expression at this evidence of distrust. Broward smiled slightly.

  "By the way," she said, "what are you doing here?"

  "We escaped from the dome," said Broward. "We heard firing down this way, and we thought we should protect our rear before going back into the dome. We found dead Russians, but we never did see the enemy. They must have been the ones you ran into."

  "Perhaps," she said. "You must go. You know the rules. No unauthorized personnel near the BR."

  "No non-Russians, anyway," said Scone flatly. "I know. But this is an emergency."

  "You must go," she said, raising the barrel of her gun. She did not point it at them, but they did not doubt she would.

  Scone turned and strode off, Broward following. When they had turned the first corner, Scone said, "We must leave the base on the first excuse. We have to get back to Clavius."

  "So we can start our own war?"

  "Not necessarily. Just declare independence. The Russ may have their belly full of death."

  "Why not wait until we find out what the situation on Earth is? If the Russians have any strength left on Earth, we may be crushed."

  "Now!" said Scone. "If we give the Russ and the Chinese time to recover from the shock, we lose our advantage."

  "Things are going too fast for me, too," said Broward. "I haven't time or ability to think straight now. But I have thought of this. Earth could be wiped out. If so, we on the Moon are the only human beings left alive in the universe. And..."

  "There are the Martian colonies. And the Ganymedan and Mercutian bases."

  "We don't know what's happened to them. Why start something which may end the entire human species? Perhaps, ideology should be subordinated for survival. We need every man and woman, every..."

  "We must take the chance that the Russians and Chinese won't care to risk making Homo sapiens extinct. They'll have to cooperate, let us go free."

  "We don't have time to talk. Act now; talk after it's all over."

  But Scone did not stop talking. During their passage through the corridors, he made one more statement

  "The key to peace on the Moon, and to control of this situation, is the Zemlya."

  Broward was puzzled. He knew Scone was referring to the Brobdingnagian interstellar exploration vessel which had just been built and outfitted and was now orbiting around Earth. The Zemlya (Russian for Earth) had been scheduled to leave within a few days for its ten-year voyage to Alpha Centaurus and, perhaps, the stars beyond. What the Zemlya could have to do with establishing peace on the Moon was beyond Broward. And Scone did not seem disposed to explain.

  Just then, they passed a full-length mirror, and Broward saw their images. Scone looked like a mountain of stone walking. And he, Broward thought, he himself looked like a man of leather. His shorter image, dark brown where the skin showed, his head shaven so the naked skull seemed to be overlaid with leather, his brown eyes contrasting with the rock-pale eyes of Scone, his lips too thick compared with Scone's, which were like a thin groove cut into granite, Leather against stone. Stone could outwear leather. But leather was more flexible.

  Was the analogy, as so many, false? Or only partly true?

  Broward tended to think in analogies; Scone, directly. At the moment, a man like Scone was needed. Practical, quick reacting. But, like so many practical men, impractical when it came to long range and philosophical thinking. Not much at extrapolation beyond the immediate. Broward would follow him up to a point. Then... They came to the entrance to the dome. Only the sound of voices came from it. Together, they stuck their heads around the side of the entrance. And they saw many dead, some wounded, a few men and women standing together near the center of the floor. All, except one, were in the variously colored and marked uniforms of the Soviet Republics. The exception was a tall man in the silver dress uniform of Argentina. His right arm hung limp, and bloody; his skin was grey.

  After shouting to those within the dome not to fire, the two walked in. Major Panchurin, the highest-ranking Russian survivor, lifted a hand to acknowledge their salute. He was too busy talking over the bonephone to say anything to them. The two examined the dome. The visiting delegation of Axis officers was dead except for Lorentz. The Russians left standing numbered six; the Chinese, four; the Europeans, one; the Arabic, two; the Indian-East Asiatic, none. There were four Americans alive. Broward. Scone. Captain Nashdoi. And a badly wounded woman. Major Hoebel.

  Broward walked towards Hoebel to examine her. Before he could do anything the Russian doctor, Titiev, rose from her side. He said, "I'm sorry, captain. She isn't going to make it."

  Broward looked around the dome and made a remark which must, at the time, have seemed irrelevant to Titiev. "Only three women left. If the ratio is the same on the rest of the Moon, we've a real problem."

  Scone had followed Broward. After Titiev had left, and after making sure their bonephones were not on, Scone said in a low voice, "There were seventy-five Russians stationed here. I doubt if there are over forty left in the entire base. I wonder how many in Pushkin?"

  Pushkin was the base off the other side of the Moon. They walked back to the group around Panchurin and turned on their phones so they could listen in.

  Panchurin's skin paled, his eyes widened, his hands raised protestingly.

  "No, no," he moaned out loud.

  "What is it?" said Scone, who had heard only the last three words coming in through the device implanted in his skull.

  Panchurin turned a suddenly old face to him. "The commander of the Zemlya said that the Argentineans have set off an undetermined number of cobalt bombs. More than twenty, at the very least."

  He added, "The Zemlya is leaving its orbit. It intends to establish a new one around the Moon. It won't leave until we evaluate our situation. If then."

  Every Soviet in the room looked at Lorentz.

  The Argentinean straightened up from his weary slump and summoned all the strength left in his bleeding body. He spoke in Russian so all would understand.

  "We told you pigs we would take the whole world with us before we'd bend our necks to the Communist yoke!" he shouted.

  At that moment, his gaunt high-cheekboned face with its long upper lip, thin lipline mustache, and fanatical blue eyes made him resemble the dictator of his country, Felipe Howards, El Macho (The Sledgehammer).

  Panchurin ordered two soldiers and the doctor to take him to the jail. "I would like to kill the beast now," he said. "But he may have valuable information. Make sure he lives... for the time being."

  Then, Panchurin looked upwards again to Earth, hanging only a little distance above the horizon. The others also stared.

  Earth, dark now, except for steady glares here and there, forest fires and cities, probably, which would burn for days. Perhaps weeks. Then, when the fires died out, the embers cooled, no more fire. No more vegetation, no more animals, no more human beings. Not for centuries.

  Suddenly, Panchurin's face crumpled, tears flowed, and he began sobbing loudly, rackingly.

  The others could not withstand this show of grief. They understood now. The shock had worn off enough to allow sorrow to have its way. Grief ran through them like fire through the forests of their native homes.

  Broward, also weeping, looked at Scone and could not understand. Sco
ne, alone among the men and women under the dome and the Earth, was not crying. His face was as impassive as the slope of a Moon mountain.

  Scone did not wait for Panchurin to master himself, to think clearly. He said, "I request permission to return to Clavius, sir."

  Panchurin could not speak; he could only nod his head. "Do you know what the situation is at Clavius?" said Scone relentlessly.

  Panchurin managed a few words. "Some missiles... Axis base... came close... but no damage... intercepted." Scone saluted, turned, and beckoned to Broward and Nashdoi. They followed him to the exit to the field. Here Scone made sure that the air-retaining and gamma-ray and sun-deflecting force field outside the dome was on. Then the North Americans stepped outside onto the field without their spacesuits. They had done this so many times they no longer felt the fear and helplessness first experienced upon venturing from the protecting walls into what seemed empty space. They entered their craft, and Scone took over the controls.

  After identifying himself to the control tower, Scone lifted the dish and brought it to the very edge of the force field. He put the controls on automatic, the field disappeared for the two seconds necessary for the craft to pass the boundary, and the dish, impelled by its own power and by the push of escaping air, shot forward.

  Behind them, the faint flicker indicating the presence of the field returned. And the escaped air formed brief and bright streamers that melted under the full impact of the sun.

  "That's something that will have to be rectified in the future," said Scone. "It's an inefficient, air-wasting method. We're not so long on power we can use it to make more air every time a dish enters or leaves a field."

  "We're still at battle stations, sir. Though we doubt if there will be any more attacks. Both the Argentinean and South African bases were wrecked. They don't have any retaliatory capabilities, but survivors may be left deep underground. We've received no order from Eratosthenes to -dispatch searchers to look for survivors, The base at Pushkin doesn't answer. It must..."

  There was a crackling and a roar. When the noise died down, a voice in Russian said, "This is Eratosthenes. You will refrain from further radio communication until permission is received to resume. Acknowledge."

  "Colonel Scone on the United Soviet Americas Force destroyer Broun. Order acknowledged."

  He flipped the switch off. To Broward, he said, "Damn Russkies are starting to clamp down already. But they're rattled. Did you notice I was talking to Pei in English, and they didn't say a thing about that? I don't think they'll take much effective action or start any witch-hunts until they recover fully from the shock and have a chance to evaluate.

  "Tell me. is Nashdoi one of you Athenians?"

  Broward looked at Nashdoi, who was slumped on a seat at the other end of the bridge. She was not within earshot of a low voice.

  "No," said Broward. "I don't think she's anything but a lukewarm Marxist She's a member of the Party, of course. Who on the Moon isn't? But like so many scientists here, she takes a minimum interest in ideology, just enough not to be turned down when she applied for psychological research here.

  "She was married, you know. Her husband was called back to Earth only a little while ago. No one knew if it was for the reasons given or if he'd done something to displease the Russkies or arouse their suspicions. You know how it is. You're called back, and maybe you're never heard of again."

  "What other way is there?" said Scone. "Although I don't like the Russky dictating the fate of any American."

  "Yes?" said Broward. He looked curiously at Scone, thinking of what a mass of contradictions, from his viewpoint, existed inside that massive head. Scone believed thoroughly in the Soviet system except for one feature. He was a Nationalist; he wanted an absolutely independent North American republic, one which would reassert its place as the strongest in the world.

  And that made him dangerous to the Russians and the Chinese.

  America had fallen prey more to its own softness and confusion than to the machinations of the Soviets. Then, in the turbulent bloody starving years that followed the fall with their purges, uprisings, savage repressions, mass transportations to Siberia and other areas, importation of other nationalities to create division and bludgeoning propaganda and re-education, only the strong and the intelligent survived.

  Scone, Broward, and Nashdoi were of the second generation born after the fall of Canada and the United States. They had been born and had lived because their parents were flexible, hardy, and quick. And because they had inherited and improved these qualities.

  The Americans had become a problem to the Russians. And to the Chinese. Those Americans transported to Siberia had, together with other nationalities brought to that area, performed miracles with the harsh climate and soil, had made a garden. But they had become Siberians, not too friendly with the Russians.

  China, to the south, looking for an area in which to dump their excess population, had protested at the bringing in of other nationalities. Russia's refusal to permit Chinese entry had been one more added to the long list of grievances felt by China towards her elder brother in the Marx family. And on the North American continent, the American Communists had become another trial to Moscow. Russia, rich with loot from the U.S., had become fat. The lean underfed hungry Americans, using the Party to work within, had alarmed the Russians with their increasing power and influence. Moreover, America had recovered, was again a great industrial empire. Ostensibly under Russian control, the Americans were pushing and pressuring subtly, and not so subtly, to get their own way. Moscow had to resist being Uncle Samified.

  To complicate the world picture, thousands of North Americans had taken refuge during the fall of their country in Argentina. And there the energetic and tough-minded Yanks (the soft and foolish died on the way or after reaching Argentina) followed the paths of thousands of Italians and Germans who had fled there long ago. They became rich and powerful; Felipe Howards, El Macho, was part-Argentinean Spanish, part-German, part-American.

  Recently, the South African Confederation had formed an alliance with Argentina. And the Axis had warned the Soviets that they must cease all underground activity in Axis countries, cease at once the terrible economic pressures and discriminations against them, and treat them as full partners in the nations of the world.

  If this were not done and if a war started, and the Argentineans saw their country was about to be crushed, they would explode cobalt bombs.

  The Soviets knew the temper of the proud and arrogant Argentineans. They had seemed to capitulate. There was a conference among the heads of the leading Soviets and Axes. Peaceful coexistence was being talked about.

  But, apparently, the Axis had not swallowed this phrase as others had once swallowed it. And they had decided on a desperate move.

  Having cheap lithium bombs and photon compressors and the means to deliver them with gravitomagnetic drives, the Axis was as well armed as their foes. Perhaps (their thought must have been) if they delivered the first blow, their anti-missiles could intercept enough Soviet missiles so that the few that did get through would do a minimum of damage. Perhaps. No one really knew what caused the Axis to start the war.

  Result: a dying Earth and a torn Moon.

  Broward belonged to that small underground which neither believed in the old Soviet nor the old capitalist system. It wanted a form of government based on the ancient Athenian method of democracy on the local level and a loose confederation on the world level. All national boundaries would be abolished.

  Such considerations, thought Broward, must be put aside for the time being. Getting independence of the Russians, getting rid of the hellish bonephones, was the thing to do now. Or so it had seemed to him.

  But would not that inevitably lead to war and the destruction of all of humanity? Would it not be better to work with the other Soviets and hope that eventually the Communist ideal could be subverted and the Athenian established? With communities so small, the modified Athenian form of governme
nt would be workable. Later, after the Moon colonies increased in size and population, means could be found for working out intercolonial problems.

  Or perhaps, thought Broward, watching the monolithic Scone, Scone did not really intend to force the other Soviets to cooperate? Perhaps, he hoped they would fight to the death and the North American base alone would be left to repopulate the world.

  "Broward," said Scone, "go sound out Nashdoi. Do it subtly."

  "Wise as the serpent, subtle as the dove," said Broward. "Or is it the other way around?"

  Scone lifted his eyebrows. "Never heard that before. From what book?"

  Broward walked away without answering. It was significant that Scone did not know the source of the quotation. The Old and New Testaments were allowed reading only for select scholars. Broward had read an illegal copy, had put his freedom and life in jeopardy by reading it.

  But that was not the point here. The thought that occurred to him was that, nationality and race aside, the people on the Moon were a rather homogeneous group. Three-fourths of them were engineers or scientists of high standing, therefore, had high I.Q.'s. They were descended from ancestors who had proved their toughness and good genes by surviving through the last hundred years. They were all either agnostics or atheists or supposed to be so. There would not be any religious differences to split them. They were all in superb health, otherwise they would not be here. No diseases among them, not even the common cold. They would all make good breeding stock. Moreover, with recent advances in genetic manipulation, defective genes could be eliminated electrochemically. Such a manipulation had not been possible on Earth with its vast population where babies were being born faster than defective genes could be wiped out. But here where there were so few...

  Perhaps, it would be better to allow the Soviet system to exist for now. Later, use subtle means to bend it towards the desired goal.

  No! The system was based on too many falsities, among which the greatest was dialectical materialism. As long as the corrupt base existed, the structure would be corrupt.