From the ground, it was pretty obvious that a lot of equipment must have been transferred from cargo rockets to the underground storage area. The dust showed the trampling of hundreds of feet and claws where men and bots had carried heavy burdens into the warehouse. A few vehicle tracks crisscrossed the trail which stretched from the large landing port over to the small dome that marked the entrance to the underground storage area. The tracks looked like they'd just been made; the lack of atmosphere meant they would remain as they were for centuries unless someone disturbed them.
The white plastic dome over the storage entrance was mostly door. When we released it, it parted along three seams and spread open so that it looked like some type of mechanical bird getting ready to take off.
"Why didn't they just store everything on the surface?" I asked.
"Earther mentality maybe," Jake said. "You see it all the time in space. We've all grown up with the ravages of the atmosphere. There're some other reasons, too, though. The temperature's more constant a few feet into the surface and there's less damage to equipment during a solar flare."
"Solar flare!" I said. "I'd forgotten about that. How do we know we're not being fried right now?"
"See the little button on the wrist of your suit," Jake pointed to his wrist then switched on his suit lights and bounded down the ramp leading into the cavernous storage chamber with one leap. " If it turns red, you head for shelter."
I reminded myself to check my wrist indicator every five minutes from now on. "What shelter," I asked as Nikki and I followed him into the cavern.
"Underground," Jake said. "The lunar rock gives shielding from radiation. Same reason the crew quarters and mess hall are underground."
As we reached the bottom of the ramp, we had to turn our heads about to bathe the area with our suit lights. Straight ahead from the base of the ramp were a number of lunar "rovers;" large, tracked vehicles that were useful only for traveling about on the surface of the crater since they couldn't climb the steep incline of the crater walls.
Next to the rovers were three platforms with a rail around two seats. "What are those?" I asked.
Jake turned to see where I was pointing. "Those are two-man flitters. They use them for short trips around the cavern. They have a very limited carry capacity." He laughed. "When we get other vehicles built with gravity rods in them, they'll really simplify moving things on the Moon."
"And Earth," Nikki added.
"Revolutionary."
We journeyed down the right ramp to six empty rooms. Beyond that was a large storeroom piled high with plastic crates.
"What are in those boxes?" Nikki asked and sprang toward them. She looked at those in her light then hopped over to some more. "Rats, they're only bar coded... It's impossible to tell what's in them. We'll have to look for the computer manifest. There could be enough stuff to outfit a whole colony." She leaned back so her helmet light revealed the rows of crates that extended upward.
"Let's go back the other way," I said. "The bots would be in larger containers. These are all too small."
We located the bots in a huge chamber that, like the others, had been carved out of the solid rock. Inside it were at least several hundred bots of various types along with an equal number of spare parts kits and support tools for the different models. Each of the bots was wrapped in a tough, clear plastic container.
"How about that?" Jake said as we stood there bathing the bots in the light from our suits. "A whole army of them. If we can get some of these back to our base..."
"The 'if' again," I said.
"Yeah," Nikki agreed. "That's not going to be easy given the limited space of the van."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Jake, could we use the cable you brought along? Would that hold?"
Jake laughed, patting the carbonylon cable he'd wrapped around his shoulder and under one arm, "If the van can lift them, the cable will hold anything up to 14 tons. String them up under the van and away we go."
"Sounds logical," I said, "only I'm afraid it won't work. The downward wash from the anti-grav rods would cause anything below the van to either be knocked off or ripped apart. We'll have to fill the van then fasten them to the top and sides."
"We'd better fasten them carefully so the load won't shift around," Nikki cautioned. " I can imagine what might happen if one swung loose and flopped around changing the balance of the van at a critical moment."
Hurtling toward the face of the Moon because of a poorly tied square knot. Not a pretty picture.
"Are the bots operational?" Nikki asked.
"We'll see," Jake said. He stepped forward and pressed the release seam down the plastic cover. The cover opened; Jake reached in and flipped the control switch on. Nothing happened. "Looks like we may have some work to do. I wonder whether they lack batteries or just need to be charged. Anyone know how to open a bot up?"
"Just a minute," I said. " I had some bots like these over here in my lab." I bounced over to the mechanicals. "Yeah, these are standard lab bots in space man's clothing. Let me pop one open and check its energy pack." I pulled off the plastic sheeting that surrounded it and tried the activation switch on the off chance that Jake had picked a malfunctioning bot. But like the other, this bot failed to come on line.
I spent the next few seconds trying to remove the battery cover so I could see inside the power compartment. Suit lights are sure awkward; I had to do a contortionist imitation before I could see. " It has batteries but they aren't charged."
"How are we going to--"
"Shouldn't be too hard," I said. "We can run a cable off the van's generating system. It'll take a while but it should work. Let's start moving the bots to the front door."
"I'll go get the van," Nikki said and bounded out of the room and down the dark hallway behind us.
"Let's try to use this model," I told Jake. " It will be easiest to charge since I know how it operates. Unfortunately, the van's too big to back down here where the bots are."
"Nothing's easy." Jake came over and grabbed one side of the bot and I took the other. Through a series of spastic hops, we finally got it coordinated in our movements and rapidly brought it to the entrance to the storage area as Nikki brought the van down as far as it would fit in the narrow passageway.
"You know," Nikki said as she stepped out of the van, "if you could recharge a couple of these units, we could program them to drag the other bots to the entrance. It'd save a lot of work in the long run."
"Good idea," I said. I hated taking the time to program a bot, but the task was fairly simple and I hated carrying bots even more than programming them.
I pulled up the hood of the van and removed the coiled electrical cable that I had stored there. Setting the voltage regulator (that had come to us thanks to Jake's surplus gear) to the correct setting, I plugged one end of the cable into the bot's recharge panel and the other to the regulator. In five minutes, the bot was functional.
"Either of you know how to program one of these?" I asked.
"No."
"'Fraid not."
So while Nikki and Jake played explorer, I got to play nursemaid to some very dimwitted machines. About a half hour later, the bot was finally dragging another bot out of the storage area and setting it by the van. I was relieved to see that it hadn't smashed its brother in the process.
By transferring the program from the first bot to the second, I was able to have two bots bringing out the others. I could have programmed several more, but found that with just the two working, I was able to charge a bot by the time they dragged out a new bot. I decided having a bot recharge the others was a little more risk than I wanted to take since the voltage regulator seemed to vary a lot and had to be constantly watched.
Eventually I choose three models of bots to take with us after double checking to be sure I could recharge all of them as needed. One type was the cylinder-looking lab bot that I was familiar with. The two other models looked like they'd probably both been designed for the low gravity of the Moon since they had spidery legs. One was about the size of a small dog and had "Go-4" ("Gopher," get it?) stenciled on the side of it while the other had a body the size of a man's with eight meter-long appendages which it could use as feet or hands or which could have power tools mounted on it. The crazy things could move on two appendages like a man or--if they had a heavy load--on four or more legs which gave them a real bug look. In my mind at least, it looked like a spider.
After two hours of charging bots, I was finally finished. The bots stood beside the van waiting for more instructions. During that time I had been listening to Jake and Nikki on the radio. They'd managed to get the computer running in the control room and pulled out a list of what was in the storage area. Now they were making sounds that you'd expect from two kids in a candy store as they inspected the manifest of the storage area.
"I'm finished up out here if you two want to help load up," I said.
Moments later, Nikki bounced up to me, "Look at this." She handed me a computer print out.
I read some of the list. "Food, tools, medicine... Looks like we could be set up for quite some time. My only question is, will we be endangering some upcoming expedition if we use any of this?"
"Yeah, that's an angle we haven't really considered," Jake said. " I'd hate to move this out and cause some group to starve to death. I really think it's only an outside chance that anyone's planning on ever coming back, though. They've dismantled the space development and exploration."
"Even if a group came up from Earth that wouldn't be a problem," Nikki said. " If we can start up the mining operation, and make some rods, we'll be able to transport food and equipment up from Earth like there's no tomorrow. The need of a storage dump like this will be a thing of the past."
"Catering service. There's an angle." I handed the list to Nikki. "At any rate, we won't be needing these supplies for a while given what's in the other site. But it'll be good to know that they're here if we should need them."
"It's hard to believe that they abandoned all this."
"That's the problem with chemical rockets," Jake said. "They're too expensive. It was cheaper to leave all this stuff here than take it back. Just think of how things are going to change when the rods become available. A jump to the Moon will be as easy as a rocket flight to another part of the Earth."
"It is hard to imagine the effect the rods would have if we ever get enough made to make them available," I agreed.
"And once the public knows about them, we'll be out of danger," Nikki said.
"I don't know. If someone wanted to kill me--us--before, they'll be interested in silencing us rather than letting the public find that they tried to keep the rods under raps. I suspect we'll steal be on someone's hit parade."
"Phil, you always manage to look on the dark side, don't you?"
"A pessimist is never disappointed."