Moonrise (48 page)

“It’s important that you get to the Yamagata team before their rescue party does,” said Anson.

“Yeah, I know. But there doesn’t look like much room to put down safely. That’s why the Japs crashed in the first place.”

“There must be someplace!”

“When I find it I’ll let you know.” Killifer punched the radio off. Turning to Deems, he added, “If we can find a landing spot before we run out of fuel.”

Deems said, “How about right on the edge of the ice?”

“We’ll melt it, just like they did.”

“Okay, but it can’t be real deep there. Must be solid ground underneath.” Before Killifer could object he added, “And if there’s boulders big enough to give us trouble, they’d probably be poking up above the surface of the ice.”

“Probably,” Killifer muttered.

“I don’t see any other way,” said Deems. “Do you?”

Killifer stared at the polished visor of Deems’s helmet. He could only make out the vaguest outline of the face inside. For a scared rabbit, Killifer though, he’s getting pretty gutsy.

“Otherwise we’re just going to run out of propellant jerking around, looking for a flat spot that isn’t here.”

Unaccustomed to bold ideas from Deems, Killifer grunted, then mumbled, “Maybe you’re right.”

It was unusual for a Clippership to land at Moonbase. Usually the big commercial spaceliners went only as far as the space stations that hugged Earth in low orbits.

Greg watched the main display screen at the spaceport flight control center as the big, cone-shaped
Maxwell Hunter
settled slowly, silently on its rocket exhaust. More than a dozen others had crowded into the flight control center, too. Like a cruiseliner landing in some out-of-the-way port, Greg thought. The natives go down to the dock to watch.

A flexible access tube wormed its way to the Clipper’s main airlock while the ship stood on the blast-scarred landing pad, gleaming in the sunlight. Greg knew that the Clipper carried Professor Wilhelm Zimmerman and four of his top aides. Kris Cardenas was on her way to Moonbase, also. And Mom. It’s going to be a busy few hours here, he said to himself.

Greg was shocked when Wilhelm Zimmerman pushed through the airlock hatch at the underground receiving area. He was grossly fat, almost as wide across his soft sagging middle as he was tall. Bald, jowly, wearing a gray three-piece business suit with the unbuttoned jacket flapping ludicrously, the first thing he did upon setting foot on the underground chamber’s rock floor was to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a long, black, evil-looking cigar.

“You can’t smoke in here!” Greg shouted, lunging toward him.

Zimmerman scowled from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. “So? Then where?”

“Nowhere in Moonbase. Smoking is strictly prohibited. For safety reasons.”

“Nonsense!” Zimmerman snapped. “Like the laws in
Switzerland. Pure nonsense.” He fished in his side pocket and pulled out a gold lighter.

Greg gently took the lighter from him. “This is a totally artificial environment,” he said. “Smoking is not allowed.”

Zimmerman’s scowl deepened. “You drag me up here to this … this … cavern, you ask me to perform a miracle for you, and you deny me my only vice?” His English was heavily accented but understandable.

“I’m afraid so, Professor.”

“Professor Doctor!”

“No smoking,” Greg said somberly, “no matter how many titles you have.”

Zimmerman looked as if he wanted to turn around and go back to the spacecraft that had brought him. But then he broke into a fleshy grin.

“Very well,” he said, suddenly amiable. “Since I have no choice, I will refrain from smoking. But you can’t stop me from chewing!” And he clamped his teeth on the fat black cigar.

Greg raised his eyes to the rock ceiling. “Come this way, please,” he said softly, pointing to the tractor that was waiting to take them to Moonbase proper. “And be careful—”

He realized that Zimmerman was walking perfectly well alongside him. Looking down, Greg saw that Zimmerman’s feet were already shod in weighted lunar boots.

His grin turning triumphant, Zimmerman said grandly, “I am not a complete … how do you say it, tenderfeet?”

“Where did you get them?” Greg asked. “I didn’t know they were available on Earth.”

“Mrs. Stavenger had them aboard the ship that took me here. My abductor is very kind to me.”

“Abductor?” Greg asked as he helped the obese old man up into the tractor.

“You think I would come to this bunker of my own volition? I have been kidnapped, young man, by a powerful, vicious woman.”

Greg gave him a wintry smile. “My mother,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“So?” Zimmerman looked briefly surprised. “But your name is not hers.”

His smile disappeared. “She remarried after my father … died.”

“Ah.” Zimmerman nodded, making his jowls jiggle. As Greg put the tractor in gear and started down the long tunnel, he asked, “You have prepared the tissue samples for which I asked?”

“The medics will have them for you by the time we get to the infirmary.”

“And blood—whole plasma, hemoglobin, this you have available?”

Greg shook his head. “The blood bank here is very small. We’re lining up volunteer donors who have the proper blood type.”

“We will probably have to replace his entire blood supply.”

“Then we’ll need more brought up from Earth,” Greg said. “In the meantime, you can examine him and get started on your procedures.”

Zimmerman grunted. “I will have time to wash my hands, perhaps?”

“It’s my half-brother who’s dying, Professor Doctor. We’ve got to act quickly.”

“Ah,” the old man said again. “Very well. The tissue samples are needed so that we can imitate them on the surface of the nanomachines. Otherwise what is still functioning of his body’s immune system will attack the machines when they are injected into his blood stream.”

“I see.”

“You don’t want his damaged immune system attacking the machines that are trying to save him.”

“I understand.”

“Blood transfusions immediately. By the time my associates have analyzed the tissue samples the transfusions must be complete. Then we inject the nanomachines.”

“I see,” said Greg.

Zimmerman lapsed into silence, folding his hands over his ample belly and letting his many chins sag to his chest. He seemed asleep. Mom must’ve had him yanked out of his bed, Greg thought. She probably would’ve really kidnapped him if he hadn’t agreed to come up here. She’s frantic over Doug.
Would she be just as frantic, just as determined, if it was me in the infirmary, dying?

“Contact light,” Deems said, his voice quavering slightly.

“Okay,” said Killifer. “We’re down.” He was perspiring; cold sweat made his palms slippery, stung his eyes.

They had landed at the edge of the ice field, as Deems had suggested. The ice partially melted beneath the blast of their rocket exhaust and the lobber’s landing feet sank into a mushy cold swamp. For an instant both men had felt their vehicle sinking, then it hit solid rock and came to a halt, tilted slightly but safely down.

Eyes burning with sweat, Killifer opened his visor and then reached into his thigh pouch for a reusable sponge-like sheet of plastic to wipe his face. He saw that Deems was doing the same. Scared shitless, Killifer thought.

“Okay,” he said, after taking a breath. “Check suits. Prepare for surface excursion.”

“I don’t see their lights,” Deems said as he closed his helmet visor.

“They’re over the horizon, about four klicks out on the ice.”

“We both going out?”

“Damned right. We’ll hook a tether to the winch.”

Deems said, “All right,” without much enthusiasm.

Killifer stuffed his wiper back into the pouch on the thigh of his suit. Then he realized that the cermet hatch cover from Brennart’s hopper was not in there. He groped in the other thigh pouch. Not there, either.

“What’s the matter?” Deems asked.

“Nothing,” Killifer snapped. “Let’s get going.”

The astronomer. Stupid little gook put on my suit when she went up the mountain to get Stavenger. She’s got it!

Panic surged through him. If she understands what it means— No, he told himself. She wouldn’t. How could she? It’s just a hunk of cermet to her. I’ll have to get it back from her, though.

“You okay?” Deems’s voice sounded worried in his earphones.

“Yeah. Let’s get moving.”

I’ll have to get it back from her, Killifer told himself again. Because if she figures it out, I’m dead.

Zimmerman terrified the meager infirmary staff. Only one M.D., a very junior young woman, and three technicians who split their time between medical duties and elsewhere, the staff was meant to deal with injuries and minor illnesses. Big problems were sent Earthward, either to one of the space stations or to a hospital on the ground.

“Equipment, this is? Junk, this is!” Zimmerman bellowed when they showed him the infirmary. “It is impossible to work with Tinkertoys! Impossible!”

None of the youngsters could please Zimmerman in the slightest. He bullied them, swore at them in German and English, told them what incompetent swine they were. He cursed their teachers, their progenitors, and predicted a dim future for the human race if such
dummkopfs
were allowed anywhere near the practice of medicine.

When Greg tried to intervene, Zimmerman turned on him. “So? Now you are an expert, also? How can I work here? Where are my facilities that your blackmailing mother promised me? Where is the blood for transfusion? How can I perform miracles without the tools I need? Even Christ had some water when he wanted to make wine!”

“Willi, Willi, I could hear you out at the airlock.”

Greg turned and saw Kris Cardenas, bright and blonde and perky, striding into the narrow confines of the four-bed infirmary.

“Kristin,
liebling
, no one told me you were coming here!”

Zimmerman’s demeanor changed as abruptly as the dawn transforms the dark lunar night.

“Willi, you mustn’t let yourself get angry at these people,” Cardenas scolded cheerfully. “They’re trying to help you.”

“Ach, with such help a man could die. I’d rather have Hungarians on my side.”

“It’s bad for your heart to get so worked up,” Cardenas said, smiling sweetly. She was wearing a light blue sweater and slightly darker knee-length skirt. If Greg didn’t know better, he would have sworn she wasn’t much older than thirty-five.

Zimmerman’s fleshy face turned puckish. “Ah, this will
be like the old days, won’t it? You were my best student, always.”

“And you were always my favorite professor,” Cardenas returned the compliment.

With a shake of his head that made his jowls wobble, Zimmerman spread his stubby arms in a gesture of helplessness. “But look around at this place! There is not the necessary equipment! There is not the trained staff! How can I—”

Cardenas silenced him by placing a fingertip gently on his ups. “Willi, I’m here. I’ll assist you.”

“You will?”

“And the four people you brought from your clinic.”

“Clinic?” The fat old man looked startled. “I have no clinic! My research facility at the university is a laboratory, not a clinic.”

“Yes, I know,” Cardenas said. “Forgive my error.”

His beaming smile returned. “For you,
liebling
, no forgiving is necessary. Now let us get to work.”

“Welcome to Moonbase, Mother,” said Greg.

Joanna did not look haggard. Not quite. But the tension in her face was obvious. She’s frightened, Greg realized. Frightened and frustrated because there’s nothing more that she can do for Doug. Nothing but wait and hope that Zimmerman can perform a miracle.

“Take me to him, Greg,” she said, her voice strained. “Please.”

She had changed into standard lunar coveralls on the trip up, Greg saw. White, the color code for medics, rather than management’s sky blue, such as he wore. And she was already wearing weighted boots.

Without another word, Greg led her to the tractor and
started down the tunnel toward the main part of the base. I’m getting to be a taxi driver, he grumbled to himself.

“How is he? Is he in pain?”

“They’ve wrapped him in cooling blankets to bring his body temperature down as far as they dare,” Greg reported. “Zimmerman and his team are programming a set of nano-machines to repair the damage to his cells that’s been done by the radiation.”

Joanna nodded tensely.

Glancing at her as they drove down the long tunnel, Greg added, “They’re giving him massive blood transfusions, but the damage is pretty extensive, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll give blood,” Joanna said immediately. “You can, too.”

Greg turned away from her. “I don’t know if Zimmerman’s bugs are going to be able to save him.”

“If he can’t, no one can,” Joanna said.

“Careful!” yelped Yazaru Hara. “His ribs are broken.”

“Got to get him out of the seat,” Killifer said.

The unconscious Japanese was dead weight made extra heavy by his bulky armored spacesuit. Killifer grasped him under his arms while Hara, turned awkwardly in his seat, lifted his companion’s legs so that the American could slide him out of the spacecraft cockpit.

“How long’s he been unconscious?” Killifer asked, panting with the effort.

“Many hours,” said Hara. “He was still breathing, though, when you arrived.”

“Yeah.” Slowly Killifer pulled Inoguchi’s inert form through the cockpit’s emergency hatch and out onto the black ice.

Deems had rigged a makeshift stretcher out of honeycomb panels from the side of the Yamagata craft. Killifer lowered the spacesuited Japanese onto it. He heard a groan from the Jap.

“He’s still alive!” Hara shouted.

“Yeah,” said Killifer, thinking, Great. Now we gotta carry this dead weight back over four klicks of ice. Lucky if we don’t all wind up with busted bones.

*       *       *

“How much longer will it take?” Joanna demanded, nervously pacing up and down Jinny Anson’s office.

Greg, sitting on the couch jury-rigged from scavenged spacecraft seats, shook his head. Zimmerman and his staff had been working for hours in Moonbase’s nanolab. The grumpy old man hadn’t even looked at Doug yet.