"I think Pickering Field is a fitting name." The voice in the earphones died away and Crag found himself listening to the static of space. He pulled the sets off and turned to Nagel. "How much oxygen would a man need for a round trip to Bandit, assuming a total distance of seven miles." "It's not that far," Prochaska reminded. "There might be detours." Nagel calculated rapidly. "An extra cylinder would do it." "Okay, Larkwell and I'll go. You and Prochaska stand by." Crag caught the surprised look on the Chief's face. "There might be communication problems," he explained. Privately, he had decided that no man would be left alone until the mystery of the time bomb was cleared up. Prochaska nodded. The arrangement made sense. Nagel appeared pleased that he didn't have to make the long trek. Larkwell, on the other hand, seemed glad to have been chosen. CHAPTER 9 There is no dawn on the moon, no dusk, no atmosphere to catch and spread the light of the sun. When the lunar night ends--a night two earth weeks long--the sun simply pops over the horizon, bringing its intolerable heat. But the sky remains black--black and sprinkled with stars agleam with a light unknown on earth. At night the temperature is 250 degrees below zero; by day it is the heat of boiling water. Yet the sun is but an intense circle of white aloft in a nigrescent sky. It was a world such as Crag had scarcely dreamed of--alien, hostile, fantastic in its architecture--a bizarre world spawned by a nature in revolt. Crag stopped to adjust the temperature control on his suit. He started to mop his brow before he remembered the helmet. Larkwell saw the gesture, and behind his thick face plate his lips wrinkled in a grin. "Go on, scratch it," he challenged. "This moon's going to take a lot of getting used to." Crag swept his eyes over the bleak plain. "And they send four men to conquer this." "It ain't conquered yet," Larkwell spat. Crag's answer was a sober reflection. "No, it isn't," he said quietly. He contemplated the soot-filled sky, its magic lanterns, then looked down again at the plain. "Let's get moving." * * * * * It was dawn--dawn in the sense that the sun had climbed above the horizon. The landing had been planned for sunup--the line which divided night from day--to give them the benefit of a two-week day before another instantaneous onslaught of night.