"It can be repaired." For a moment there was a startled silence. "How?" "The inside of the cabin is lined with foam rubber, the same as in Bandit--a self-sealing type designed for protection against meteorite damage." "So...?" Larkwell asked belligerently. Richter explained, "It's not porous. If the break were covered with metal and lined with the foam, it would do a pretty good job of sealing the cabin." "You can't patch a leak that big with rubber and expect it to hold," Larkwell argued. "Hell, the pressure would blow right through." "Not if you lined the break with metal first," Richter persisted. The suggestion startled Crag, coming as it did from a man whom he regarded as an enemy. For a moment he wondered if the German's instinct for survival were greater than his patriotism. But the plan sounded plausible. He asked Larkwell: "What do you think?" "Could be," he replied noncommittally. He didn't seem pleased that Richter was intruding in a sphere which he considered his own. Crag gave a last look at the silhouette of the fallen giant on the plain and announced: "We'll try it." "If it doesn't work, we're in the soup," Larkwell insisted. "Suppose there are more breaks?" "We'll patch those, too," Crag snapped. He felt an unreasonable surge of anger toward the construction boss. He sucked his lip, vexedly, then turned his torch on his oxygen meter. "We'd better get moving." CHAPTER 18 Colonel Michael Gotch looked at the agent across the narrow expanse of his battered desk, then his eyes fell again to the dockets. Four dockets, four small sheaves of paper, each the capsuled story of a man's life. The names on the dockets were literally burned into his mind: Adam Philip Crag, Martin LeRoy Larkwell, Gordon Wells Nagel, Max Edward Prochaska. Four names, four men, four separate egos who, by the magic of man, had been transported to a bleak haven on another world. Four men whose task was to survive an alien hell until the U.N. officially recognized the United States' claim to sovereignty over the stark lands of the moon. But one of the men was a saboteur, an agent whose task was to destroy the Western claim to ownership by destroying its occupancy of the moon. That would leave the East free to claim at least equal sovereignty on the basis that it, too, had established occupancy in a lunar base. The agent broke into his thoughts. "I'd almost stake my professional reputation he's your man." He reached over and tapped one of the dockets significantly. "The word, the single word, that's what you used to tell me to watch for. Well, the single word is there--the word that spells traitor. I'd gone over his record a dozen times before I stumbled on it." He ceased speaking and watched the Colonel. "You may be right," Gotch said at last. "That's the kind of slip I'd pounce on myself." He hesitated. "Go on," the agent said, as if reading his thoughts.