The fights that Brinker got into with other toughs at the various supply stations, and never lost, added to the legend--that old Tom's son was savage and dangerous, but with a gentler side. For instance he once carried a crazed Moon-tramp, whom Copeland was too slight to have handled for a minute, fifty miles on his back to a station. Oh, sure--the stunt could be pure ballyhoo, not charity. But Copeland knew that more and more people had begun to admire his buddy. Brinker never found a weak spot in the lunar crust. "It's always about two hundred miles deep, Cope," he said. "Lots thicker than Earth's shell, because the Moon, being smaller, cooled more. But don't worry; nothing is impossible. Soon I'll have enough money to make minor tests. And maybe enough friends for serious support." Yeah--maybe it was all just a brain-bubble. But Copeland had seen enough of desolation to grind the spirit of the Brinker idea into his bones--even if he didn't think it was quite practical. "I'll throw my dough in with yours, Jess," he said. Their named bootprints helped build their fame as explorers; but there was a flaw and an invitation here which they both must have realized--and still faced as a calculated risk. * * * * * A lunar day later, they were plodding through the Fenwick mountains on the far hemisphere, when streams of bullets made lava chips fly. As they flopped prone in the dust, a scratchy voice chuckled: "Hello, Brinker. Maybe you and your pal want my bunch to escort you back to Tycho Station. We might as well have the reward. Robbery of a minerals caravan and three killings, they say. It's terrible how you scatter your tracks around...." Brinker grasped Copeland's wrist to form a sound-channel, so that they could converse without using their radiophones. "That was Krell talking," he said. "Dad's old partner." Luckily, it was not many hours to sunset. The mountain ridges, slanting up to the peaks, cast inky shadows that could hide anything. Brinker was canny; while more bullets spurted, he led a dash back to a ridge-shadow that went clear to the range-crest. Even with bulky packs, climbing was a lot faster than on Earth, where things weigh six times as much. So they got away, over the mountains. The black night of the far side of the Moon, where Earth never shines, hid them. "Making boot-soles with our names on them," Brinker growled bitterly, using the radiophone at reduced range. "The crudest kind of frameup." "Your Krell is quite a man," Copeland stated.