Part 59 (1/2)

”He's waiting for your orders, sir.”

”Tell him to open those hatches and get the second wave into the base! And I want a report on what the first wave has accomplished.”

”Yessir.”

The trooper hustled off across the garage floor, looking to Giap more like a white humpbacked alien cyclops than a human being.

Edging closer to the wide-open hatch of the main airlock, Giap once again put his binoculars to his visor. It took agonizingly long, but at last the sergeant seemed to have gotten his order across to the captain. Gesticulating severely, the captain motioned one of his troopers to work the controls of the inner airlock hatch.

Giap saw the trooper step into the metal chamber and tap a b.u.t.ton. At last! he thought, as the inner hatch started to slide open.

A ghostly gray mist seemed to waft out of the darkness from beyond the hatch. The trooper inside the airlock, the captain standing just outside it, the runner and several other troopers nearby began to paw at their visors. Giap watched as they staggered backward, gloved hands swiping at their visors like people trying to knuckle dust from their eyes.

Then they stretched their arms out, tottering uncertainly like blind men. The captain b.u.mped into the runner and fell backwards in a dreamy, lunar slow motion until his rump bounced on the smooth rock floor of the garage.

Horrified, Giap shouted inside his helmet, ”What's happened to them? They act as if they're blind!”

CONTROL CENTER.

”It's working!” Anson said excitedly.

Doug nodded without taking his eyes off the console screens. The Peacekeepers inside the tunnels were truly deaf, dumb and blind now. Helpless. Even a few out in the garage had been blinded by the dust when they'd opened one of the inner airlock hatches.

”You did it!” Doug called over to O'Malley. He grinned boyishly and his cheeks reddened slightly.

”Are your people suited up?” Doug asked Anson.

”Ready to go,” she replied.

He felt a touch on his shoulder and, turning in the little wheeled chair, saw Edith smiling wearily down at him.

”They cut me off,” she said tiredly, her voice raw and cracking.

”You did a great job, Edith,” Doug said, clutching her hand. ”A wonderful job.”

”You'll get an Emmy,” Anson said, patting her shoulder.

”A Cronkite,” Edith croaked. ”It's more prestigious.”

”Whatever.' Anson pulled up a chair at the next console and slipped a headset over her blonde curls.

Gordette slid a chair to Edith, who half-collapsed into it. ”I forgot to time myself,” she complained hoa.r.s.ely. ”I don't have the exact number for how long I was on the air nonstop.”

”We'll dig it out of the computer,” Doug said.

”Might be a record.”

”You ought to get some rest. Go back to our quarters and take a nap. You've earned it.”

”No,” she murmured. ”I want to stay here and see it all. I need a couple of cameras...”

The security cameras are logging everything that's going on in here. Grab a bite at The Cave and then get some rest.”

”I've got to go back to the studio. Get a camera. You guys ought to be immortalized for future generations and good ol' Global News.”

Before Doug could stop her, Edith got to her feet and stumbled toward the door.

He watched her briefly, feeling a sudden urge to get up and put his arm around her, help her, share the comfort of closeness. But he fought it down and turned back to his screens. He had more important things to do.

Jansen fought down the urge to unseal his visor. He could see nothing, hear nothing, and no one could see or hear him, he was certain. It was scary. If only I could see! see! On Earth, he would have night vision goggles and infrared systems attached to his battle helmet. But they wouldn't fit inside a s.p.a.cesuit so the battle helmets had been left aside. On Earth, he would have night vision goggles and infrared systems attached to his battle helmet. But they wouldn't fit inside a s.p.a.cesuit so the battle helmets had been left aside.

Something inside him was starting to shake. Lost. Alone. No one to give him orders. No one to tell him what to do. Maybe the others are all dead! Or maybe they all got out okay; you might be the only one left in the tunnel.

An enticing voice in his head urged, Just open up the visor and see what's happening out there.

But he knew the tunnel he was in had no air in it. Open your visor and you kill yourself.

But I've got to do something! his mind screamed. I can't just stand here, blind and deaf. Maybe I can feel my way out, back to the garage...

He tried a few steps, holding his arms out stiffly in front of him like a blind man. His gloved hands touched something solid and smooth. A wall. Which way to the outside? he asked himself. He started walking along the wall, keeping one hand on its rea.s.suring solidity, taking small, frightened, hesitant steps.

And b.u.mped into another figure. He stepped back and tripped over something: someone's legs, a body on the floor, he had no idea what it was. He lost his balance and began to fall in the slow, nightmarish languid gravity of the Moon.

He sprawled on the tunnel floor, yelling and cursing, tangled in somebody's limbs, hollering all the louder because n.o.body could hear him. His shouts became panicky; inside the total isolation of his helmet he heard his own voice screaming wildly, swearing, pleading for light and help and mercy. He wanted to cry; he wanted to beat his head against the wall that he could no longer find.

Something tapped at his helmet. He fell silent, trembling inside. Then he felt the poke of a communications line being inserted into the port on the right side of the helmet.

”Just relax, trooper. Everything will be fine.' It was a woman's voice, but Jansen had never heard this woman before. A stranger.

”We're going to take care of you,” she was saying, soothingly. ”But first you have to let us take your rifle and other weapons.”

”What's happening to me?” he asked, shocked at how high and weak his voice sounded. Like a frightened little boy's.

”Your officers have surrendered to us,” said the woman. ”Once we get these weapons off you, we'll bring you out to the crater floor and return you to your own people.”

Jansen felt his rifle being lifted from off his shoulder. Other hands took his bandolier of grenades and ammunition. Then they helped him to his feet.

”Okay, just walk this way... easy now.”

Jansen let the strangers lead him blindly down the corridor. There was nothing else he could do. His s.p.a.cesuit felt oddly stiff, the way an arthritic old man must feel. He thought he heard a grinding, rasping noise whenever he flexed his left knee.

Colonel Giap watched helplessly as, one by one, his troopers were led out of the tunnels by s.p.a.cesuited rebels. The troopers had been disarmed, their weapons were nowhere in sight. They had not raised their hands above their helmeted heads, but it was clear that they had surrendered. They were prisoners. Defeated.

One of his runners trotted up to him and held up the communications line from his helmet. Impatiently, Giap gestured for him to plug it into his comm port.

”Sir! The Moonbase commander wishes to speak with you. On the radio, sir.”

Giap felt his brows rise. ”They have stopped the jamming?”

”The Moonbase officer that I spoke with said they will stop the jamming once you agree to speak to their commander.”