Tongues of the Moon

His plan was very simple, and, from his viewpoint, admirable in that it solved everything. It did not matter that it meant the deaths of three hundred people, perhaps the extermination of half the human race.

Broward and Yamanuchi were to be placed back inside their ship and in a state of stasis in their chairs. Only, this time, they would have no means to release themselves; they would be prisoners of the field until the ship crashed onto the Moon's surface at a velocity of 50,000 kilometers per hour.

The two would have company: the "planet-shaker" bomb, This would not be in the ship, since it was too large to fit inside, but would be attached to the vessel. It would have its own drive, and, at the proper moment, would release itself and dive at the moon. The inconceivably violent explosion would create a crater at least two hundred kilometers wide and fifty deep. The shock waves would not only shatter every base on the moon but would instantly kill every living being.

"To quote an old American proverb," said Pyotr, "we are killing two birds with one stone. We will not only remove the peril of attack by the Moon, we will take away any chance the Axe might have to find out about us from the Moon perso

Broward was stu

"You monster! You are as evil as Howards!"

"Not at all." said Pyotr. "I am merely doing what I must do to make sure that I and my people survive. I am doing so reluctantly, but..."

"Can't you just join the Moon, become part of it, help us in our fight for survival against the forces of Nature and of Mars?"

"Your people are Communists," said Pyotr. "We have rejected that false doctrine, and we are determined to build a new society. We can do it because we have a small group that can be closely controlled. We can educate our children into Pyotrism with no chance of foreign and contradictory ideas being introduced to confuse them. Moreover, we have a chance to get rid of our enemies once and for all."

"But, there are some on the Moon who are not Communists!" said Broward. "I am one of them. For a long time

I've been a member of an underground known as the Athenians. Perhaps you've heard of them. Moreover, Moshe is not a Communist; he despises them. I—"

"You are not a Pyotrist."

He gestured at the two and said, 'Take them away." Broward and Moshe looked despairingly at him and then at the woman. She regarded them coldly and unflinchingly.

"I have never been so wrong about a woman in all my life," said Moshe as he and Broward were marched away. They were not, however, taken at once to the ship. The Pyotrists had to compute and tape a new journey to the Moon, one for the ship and a different path for the bomb's motor after it separated from the ship. The process took three hours; meanwhile, the two sat in a small room near the undersea port. Broward tried to talk to the three guards, but they only told him to shut up. Oddly, he felt nothing at that moment but a longing for a cigarette. Now that he was to die soon, he did not see any reason to hold to his determination to quit smoking. , "At least give me a cigarette," he said.

"We don't have any," one of the guards said. "We've thrown them away. All liquor, too. We've gotten rid of all things that weaken the human body. Now, shut up!" Broward sighed. He was indeed among fanatics. "We could rush them, force them to kill us," said Broward in a low voice to Moshe. "We'd at least not die like chickens trussed up for the slaughter."

"If there was a chance of getting away from them," said Moshe, "I'd do it. But there isn't. No, we're not dead yet Maybe we can do something when we're on the ship."

"Break out of stasis? You know better."

"I don't know better. All I know is that things have a way of coming up unexpected, unpredictable. It's like an unimaginably vast roulette wheel. You never know where the ball's going. True, the odds are in the House's favor, but you still have a chance to win."

"It's a shame that a man like you has to die," murmured Broward.

But he thought, Moshe is right. And as long as there are men like Moshe, man has a chance of surviving. There must be others like him, not only on the Moon and Mars and Ganymede and Mercury, but in this place under the sea on Earth and only God knew how many other places on Earth.

Only God knew.... how often that phrase was used in a supposedly Godless society by Godless men. Of course, its frequency was explained as being an archaic cliche, a figure-of-speech survival that did not mean anything. Katashkina entered the room. She said, "Let's go. Everything's ready."

A car was waiting for them; this had a back seat over which a transparent bubble was placed. It was raised, and the two were forced to sit under it. The bubble was lowered and clamped magnetically. Katashkina and a guard got into the front seat, and the other two followed in another vehicle.

After that, events happened so swiftly that Yamanuchi and Broward were bewildered. The two cars shot down the tu

The colonel protested, but she said, harshly, "If you don't believe me, contact Pyotr. That is, if you want to take the chance of angering him. He doesn't like his orders questioned."

"I was told that I was in charge," the colonel said.

"Then the breakdown in communications should be investigated," she replied. "There's inefficiency and incompetency somewhere along the line."

The colonel scowled, but he stepped back. He was still looking perplexed when she shut the port.

The two guards were startled by this, but they said nothing. Nor did they speak when Katashkina pulled her automatic from her holster and ordered them to drop their weapons. Like the prisoners, they were stu

"No time to explain now," she said to Moshe. "Take the controls. Do as I say."

Moshe smiled as if he could not believe what was happening, but he obeyed. She then placed her finger on the button that actuated the port, and she said to the guards, "I'm opening this just far enough for you to squeeze out one at a time. Go!"

The first to the port, a large red-faced man, had to turn sideways to get through. For a second, he struggled, and Katashkina opened the port a little more. Before he could take advantage of the increased space, there were shots from outside, and he fell back under the impact of the bullets. His legs, however, were sticking out of the ship.

"Take it away," she said. Moshe touched the controls, and the ship rose and sped across the harbor, then up. Katashkina glanced at her wristwatch. "The ports are set to allow us exit. If the settings aren't countermanded in time, we'll get away. If not... Broward, shove that body out. We have to close the port."

Broward leaped to do as she said. He raised the dead man with one motion and flung the corpse outwards. It fell forwards, and the port began to close.

"Dive!"

Moshe changed the course so abruptly that those standing fell to the deck. But she kept her gun on the guard, and he made no move to jump at her. Then, the craft struck the surface, and water flooded in and rose to their ankles before the port was entirely closed. It spurted through the narrowing space and drenched all within the cabin.

"We're through the tu

"Pyotr will have gotten my note by now," Katashkina said. "I told him that if he doesn't let us out, I'll have no choice except to set off the bomb. We'll die, but so will everybody. He'll know I'm not bluffing. I also told him that we won't reveal what happened here to the Moon, that we have no intention of going there."