Tongues of the Moon

"That is none of your business, but I will tell you. I have appointed a lieutenant to take charge. I am needed at Osorno. That should be enough for you."

The officer reddened, but he said nothing more except in the line of duty.

On the supply ship, Broward followed Quiroga and Saavedra to a small cabin near the center of the ship. If anybody thought it was strange that an enlisted man should sit with officers, they said nothing. Thereafter, there was little chance for anything to be noticed. The flight officer came through to check that all passengers were in the stasis areas. A few minutes later, the take-off buzzer sounded. The pilot gave a few instructions and warnings, and they were off towards Mars. Twenty minutes later, they were in the landing port of Osorno.

Saavedra said, "Follow me. I will handle everything." He looked at his wristwatch and shook his bead. Like the other two, he could not keep his mind off the ship waiting for automatic instructions at a certain time. Every second was a step closer to doom's day.

Broward's heart was beating hard at this intimacy with so many of the enemy. At the same time, he was curious. He had always wanted to know what the great base of Osorno looked like. This admission port, for instance, was enormous. It had at least fifty separate entrances for ships. After one had entered, air and heat were pumped into the individual port. The men left the vessel and went up a wide ramp into a long stone corridor. This led to a room at least five hundred meters wide and fifty high. There were desks spaced around it, but only a few were ma

The sergeant on duty, a man who looked as if he had been very sick not too long ago, said, "This is Lieutenant Quiroga? He is the man who is the only survivor of the de Rosas? He is to report at once to Naval Intelligence."

"My cousin sent in a report," muttered Quiroga to Broward. "Evidently, they want to talk to me in person."

The sergeant gave Broward and his bandaged face a hard look, but Saavedra said, "He burned his face in an accident."

"Then, if I were he, I'd be careful," replied the -sergeant. "Those with burns are very susceptible to the sickness of tears. He should report to Hospital Unit No. 10 at once."

"I will see that Quiroga and Malory follow their orders," the colonel said.

He beckoned the two to follow him, and they fell in line. Saavedra walked very swiftly out of the large chamber and down a long high-ceilinged corridor until he came to an elevator. Broward was carrying both his bag and the colonel's suitcase, but, in Mars' weak gravity, they were not heavy burdens. Inside the elevator, the colonel ordered two enlisted men who had just preceded them to leave.

"Take the next elevator. We are on very important business."

The two soldiers left without protest. Saavedra punched the button; the doors closed.

"Get those bandages off while we're going down," the colonel said. "Pablo, help him. It is unfortunate that you were to go to Intelligence, because they may wonder where you are and start investigating. On the other hand, they may not receive word that you are here for a long time or ever. It depends on our luck and on the intentions of God."

Broward stuffed the bandages into his bag just as the elevator stopped. He walked out behind the others into an enormous square room—too big to be called a room, a cavern almost—cut out of granite. Luminescent panels, as on the moon, furnished lighting. Along the farther wall were several buildings composed of blocks of some red material.

The blocks are made of piedras de care."

"What we call foamstone," said Broward. "We've some on the Moon, too."

The colonel glanced again at his watch. "Normally, we could walk through the halls and plazas u

Broward wondered if the only way to get anywhere was to use shank's mare. At that moment, a small vehicle rolled out of a corridor into the big chamber or plaza. It was only a lightweight frame on which were mounted the electric fuel-cell-powered motor and four bucket seats. The motor drove the two front wheels and also acted as braking power.

Saavedra hailed the driver, who was a public taxi operator. And, as the driver told them, chattering a Spanish so provincial that the two Argentineans, let alone Broward, had trouble understanding him, he was the only taximan left in Osorno. The others had either been drafted into the hospital services or were themselves too sick to work.

The colonel gave him an address, not correct but near their destination. After going down several different corridors and, once, down a winding ramp into a lower level, the taxi stopped. Saavedra signed a credit chit, and the taxi rolled silently away. The three walked by several barracks, all seemingly empty, and then halted before a three-story foam-stone building at the front of which hung the flag of Argentina.

"In case Intelligence is looking for three men," said Saavedra, "it is better that only one of us go in to make inquiries. Naturally, I will have to talk to the general, since I am the only one who can claim to be his friend. If all goes well, I will send for you."

He was gone for only a minute and returned looking worried.

"There was only one man on duty inside, a corporal. He told me that Mier is sick in his quarters. Mier's wife died, may God receive her soul. She was a gentle woman, a fine lady, the mother of three strong sons and one beautiful daughter."

Broward suggested that, rather than walk or wait for the taxi to come back this way, they commandeer one of the military jeeps parked nearby. No sooner said than done. There was no key problem, since these vehicles had none. Apparently, it had not occurred to the authorities that anybody would steal them in this small and close-knit community. Or maybe the penalties for theft were so severe that crime was scarce.

Two minutes later, they had turned into the largest "plaza" yet and parked before one of the ubiquitous foamstone cubes. The colonel knocked on the door of the ground-floor apartment. Nobody answered; he pushed open the door. The first room was luxuriously furnished by Moon standards; it was filled with furniture of the late nineteenth-century period that must have been imported from Mier's estate in Argentina.

"General! Are you home? It is Colonel Saavedra."

A weak voice bade them come into the bedroom. They went through a large dining-room and down a hallway to the room from which the voice had come.

Mier was lying in bed. He was a dark-ski

"General Mier!" Saavedra said. "Have you no one to take care of you? Where is your daughter, your sons?"

'Two of my sons are dead," the general said. "My daughter has gone where only God and the devil know. Rather, the devil knows, for I think she has been made one of Howards' secretaries."

"Nombre de Dios! You mean... ?"

Mier nodded and then could not stop nodding. Finally, managing to control himself, he said, "When Carlota was ordered to report to that fiend, I knew what was in store for her. I phoned Howards, begged that she be allowed to remain with me, to nurse me. But he refused. He said the state needed her. The state! L'etat, c'est Howards! Carlota is a beautiful girl, and that beast saw her and desired her. He dared to take her only because I am sick and he thinks I will die soon.

"Oh, if only my son, the only left alive to me, my brave strong Ulises, were here! He would do what I am too weak to do. He would avenge our honor."