“Christ, that’s brilliant,” Killifer said.

I’m going to suit up,” Brennart said.

“You?”

“I can’t ask my people to do something that I’m not prepared to do myself. I take the same risks they do.”

“Yeah, but—”

“How many people will we need for a dash to the summit?”

Killifer swivelled his chair to the screen and tapped on the keyboard. “Mission plan calls for six.”

“Strip it down. How many do we actually need ?”

Studying the list on his screen, Killifer said. Two to handle the nanobugs, one to pilot the hopper.”

“Martin and Greenberg are the nanotechs,” Brennart said.

Thinking swiftly, Killifer said, “Maybe we oughtta leave one of them here. No sense taking both of them up to the summit.”

“One person can’t physically handle the task,” Brennart objected.

“All you need is an extra pair of hands. A warm body will do. Either Greenberg or Martin can direct the warm body, and you haven’t risked both your nanotechs.”

Brennart pondered it for all of three seconds. “Right. I’ll take Greenberg. He’s the more experienced of the two. Who can we spare to help him?”

“The astronomer?” Killifer suggested.

“Put her to some useful work,” Brennart muttered.

“You oughtta take Stavenger, too,” Killifer pointed out ’Let him make a legal record of the claim.”

“Perfect!”

Killifer stayed in the conun cubicle as Brennart inarched off to the airlock, where the spacesuits were stored. With a little luck, he said to himself, they’ll all break their friggin’ necks.

Doug felt excited when Brennart came out and told him they were making a dash to the summit of Mt. Wasser. He had been spraying plastic sealant along the tunnel walls just dug out by the others; the sealant made the tunnel airtight. It was dull and clumsy work, inside his spacesuit, with no light except from his helmet lamp. The sealant was doped with a weakly glowing phosphor, so that any gaps in its application would be easily seen.

It was the safest job Brennart could find for him. The more experienced expedition members were handling the flammable aluminum/oxygen propellant mixture out on the surface, desperately working to break up the rock-hard ground enough to allow the tractors to scoop it up and dump it on the shelters and tunnels.

Scrambling out of the tunnel at Brennart’s command, Doug checked the equipment pouches on his belt while two of the other expedition members topped off his oxygen tank from the supply on the undamaged cargo ship. Yes, the miniature vidcam was there. Doug pulled it out and checked that its battery was fully charged. Not that he had used it, digging tunnels and sealing them.

He was surprised to see a short, stocky spacesuited figure join Brennart and Greenberg. Sure enough, the name stencilled on the chest of her suit was Rhee.

“We’re making a dash to the summit,” Brennart told them as they lifted the spindly-legged little hopper from its hold in the cargo ship. “Rhee, you assist Greenberg here. I’ll pilot the hopper.”

“What’s my assignment?” Doug asked.

“Official record keeper,” said Brennart. “Unless you know how to handle a hopper.”

Why is he so hostile to me? Doug asked himself. Aloud, he replied, “I’ve never actually flown one, but I’ve put in a lot of hours in simulators.”

“Fine,” Brennart snapped. “You can be my co-pilot. Just don’t touch anything.”

Doug helped Greenberg and Bianca Rhee to wrestle the tall canister of nanomachines onto the platform of the little hopper. Then they began strapping it down. The rocket vehicle looked too frail to take the four of them, Doug thought, even in the Moon’s light gravity. This hopper was little more than a platform with a podium for its controls and footloops to anchor a half-dozen riders. There was a fold-down railing, too, with attachments for tethers.

To Doug it looked like a great way to break your neck. Racing jetcycles seemed safer.

“Come on, come on,” Brennart urged, pushing between Rhee and Greenberg to help finish the strapdown. “We don’t have a moment to lose.”

“Why the sudden rush?” Doug asked. “This isn’t on the mission schedule.”

“No, it’s not,” Brennart snapped. “But maybe Yamagata isn’t waiting for our schedule.”

“Yamagata? They’ve got a team here too?”

“On its way,” Brennart said.

“You’re certain?” Doug probed.

“Certain enough.”

“Has it been confirmed by—”

“Who’s in charge of this expedition, Stavenger? You or me?” Brennart bellowed.

His ears ringing, Doug said, “You are, of course.”

“Then climb aboard and let’s get going.”

Doug dutifully stepped up the rickety little ladder and started to slide his boots into the foot loops alongside Brennart.

“Lift up the railings,” Brennart ordered, “and see that everyone’s safely tethered to them.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” said Doug snidery. Brennart paid no attention.

The tethers won’t be much help if we crash, Doug thought as he snapped the flimsy railings into place. By the time he returned to Brennart’s side and clicked his own tether to the rail, Brennart had powered up the hopper’s systems. All the controls showed green, Doug saw.

“Ready for takeoff,” Brennart said.

Doug heard Killifer’s answer in his earphones. “You are cleared for takeoff.”

Brennart nudged the T-yoke of the throttle forward a bit. The platform beneath Doug’s boots quivered and leaped upward.

There was no sound, no wind, but the dark, rocky land fell away from them so rapidly Doug felt his breath gush out of him.

Their little base dwindled quickly: four humps of shelters surrounded by spacesuited figures and a pair of minitractors, all digging tunnels and pushing rubble over the shelters like busy, scurrying ants. The brief flare of propellants burning into the rock strobed like a miniature lightning stroke.

Looking upward he saw the bare flank of Mt. Wasser coming near, sliding past dizzyingly as the hopper continued to rise. The rock face of the mountain looked glassy smooth, sandpapered by dust-mote-sized micrometeoroids for billions of years.

Suddenly they were in sunlight, brilliant, almost overpowering sunlight. The mountainside glittered like glass, like crystal, as it rushed by. Doug heard his suit fans whir faster, and something in his backpack groaned under the sudden heat load. He gripped the railing with both gloved hands.

“This is flying!” he said appreciatively. “Like being on a magic carpet.”

He heard Brennart chuckle softly. “You like it, eh?”

“It’s terrific!”

Neither Greenberg nor Rhee said a word. Doug wondered how Bianca was taking the flight. At least they weren’t weightless for more than a few seconds at a time; Brennart kept goosing the little rocket engine, pushing them higher in short spurts. But the lurching, spasmodic flight was starting to make Doug’s stomach gurgle.

Brennart took the little hopper up above Mt. Wasser’s flat, U-shaped summit, looking for a safe place to land, checking the actuality against the satellite photos they had studied.

“Flat area over to the left,” Doug said. “About ten o’clock.”

“I see it,” said Brennart.

A minuscule puff of thrust from two of the maneuvering jets set along the corners of the platform and they slid over sideways until they were just above the relatively flat area. It was clear of boulders, although Doug saw the sharp-rimmed edge of a crater big enough to’ swallow their hopper, clearly etched in the harsh sunlight.

His stomach told him they were falling. Then a burst of thrust. Falling again. Another burst, lighter, and Brennart put them down deftly oirihe bare rock.

It was like being on the top of the world. Doug unhooked his tether and pulled loose of his foot restraints, then turned around in a full circle. All around them stretched peaks of bare rock, as far as the eye could see. They seemed to be floating on a sea of darkness, the land below them in perpetual cryogenic night.