“quitting time” at the men on the far tower, then started moon-loping his way across the shaggy terrain toward the train of rolling barracks and machinery that moved with the construction crew as the 200 kilovolt transmission line inched its way across the lunar landscape.
The lineman glanced up absently at the star-stung emptiness of space. Motion caught his eye. He watched with a puzzled frown, then hitched himself around to call after the departing team-pusher.
The pusher stopped on a low rise to look back.
The pusher stood on the low tongue of lava and watched the heavens for a time. “
The pusher barked a short curse. “
“Yah. If you say so, Joe,” Relke muttered to himself. He glanced again at the creeping point of light in the blackness; he shrugged; he began cranking up the slack span again. But the creeping point kept drawing his gaze while he cranked. When he looked at the tension indicator, it read 5,600 pounds. He grunted his annoyance, reversed the jack ratchet, and began letting out the extra 600 pounds.
The shift-change signal was already beeping in his headsets by the time he had eased it back down to 5,000, and the C-shift crewmen were standing around the foot of the tower jeering at him from below.
He ignored the razzing and climbed down the trainward side of the tower: Larkin and Kunz walked briskly around to meet him. He jumped the last twenty-five feet, hoping to evade them, but they were waiting for him when his boots hit the ground.
They caught him in a double armlock, hoisted him off the ground, and started carrying him toward a low lava ridge that lay a hundred yards to the south of the tower. He could not kick effectively because of the stiffness of the suit. He wrenched one hand free and fumbled at the channel selector of his suit radio. Larkin jerked his stub antenna free from its mounting before Relke could put in a call for help.
They carried him across the ridge and set him on his feet again, out of sight of the camp. “
Relke heard him faintly, even without the antenna, but he saw no reason to acknowledge. When he failed to answer, Kunz produced a set of jumper wires from his knee pocket and clipped their suit audio circuits into a three-way intercom, disconnecting the plate lead from an r.f. stage to insure privacy.
“You guys give me a pain in the hump,” growled the lineman. “What do
“It
“Naah. Or maybe I did, at that. It’s to make things easy for work spies, psych checkers, and time-and-motion men, ain’t that it?”
“Yeah. You a psych checker or a time-and-motion man, Relke?”
“Hell, you guys known damn well I’m not—”
“Then what are you stalling about?” Larkin’s baritone lost its mellowness and became an ominous growl. “You came nosing around, asking questions about the Party. So we let you in on it. We took you to a cell meeting. You said you wanted to join. So we let you in on two more meetings. Then you chickened out. We don’t like that, Relke. It smells. It smells like a dirty informing rat!”
“I’m no damn informer!”
“Then why did you welsh?”
“I didn’t welsh. I never said I’d join. You asked me if I was in favor of getting the Schneider-Volkov Act repealed. I said ‘yes.’ I still say ‘yes.’ That doesn’t mean I want to join the Party.”
“Why not, Relke?”
“Well, there’s the fifty bucks, for one thing.”
“Wh-a-a-at! One shift’s wages? Hell, if that’s all that’s stopping you—Kunz, let’s pay his fifty bucks for him, okay?”
“Sure. We’ll pay your way in, Relke. I don’t hold it against a man if he’s a natural born tightwad.”
“Yeah,” said Larkin. “All you gotta do is sign up, Sonny. Fifty bucks, hell—that’s less than union dues. If you can call that yellow-bellied obscenity a union. Now how about it, Relke?”
Behind the dark lenses of his glare goggles, Relke’s eyes scanned the ground for a weapon. He spotted a jagged shard of volcanic glass and edged toward it.
“Well, Relke?”
“No deal.”
“Why not?”
“That’s easy. I plan on getting back to Earth someday. Conspiracy to commit mutiny rates the death penalty.”
“Hear what he said, Lark? He calls it mutiny.”
“Yeah. Teacher’s little monitor.”
“C’mere, informer.”
They approached him slowly, wearing tight smiles. Relke dived for the shard of glass. The jumper wires jerked tight and broke loose, throwing them off balance for a moment. He came up with the glass shard in one fist and backed away. They stopped. The weapon was as good as a gun. A slit suit was the ultimate threat. Relke tore the dangling wires loose from his radio and backed toward the top of the ridge. They watched him somberly, not speaking. Larkin waved the lineman’s stub antenna and looked at him questioningly. Relke held out a glove and waited for him to toss it. Larkin threw it over his shoulder in the opposite direction. They turned their backs on him. He loped on back toward the gravy train, knowing that the showdown had been no more than postponed. Next time would be worse. They meant to incriminate him, as a kind of insurance against his informing. He had no desire to be incriminated, nor to inform—but try to make them believe that.
Before entering the clean-up tank, he stopped to glance up at the heavens between Arcturus and Serpens. The creeping spot of light had vanished—or moved far from where he had seen it. He did not pause to search. He checked his urine bottle in the airlock, connected his hoses to the wall valves, and blew the barn-smell out of his suit. The blast of fresh air was like icy wine in his throat. He enjoyed it for a moment, then went inside the tank for a bath.
Novotny was waiting for him in the B-shift line crew’s bunkroom. The small pusher looked sore. He stopped pacing when Relke entered.
