Kinsman almost laughed. "You think sitting inside that aluminum casket you're in is safeT'
The earphones went silent. With a sigh. Kinsman wished for the tenth time that hour that he could scratch his 138 twelve-day-old beard. Get zipped into the suit and the itches start. He did not need a mirror to know that his face was haggard, sleepless, his black beard mean-looking.
He stepped down from the jumper—a rocket motor with a railed platform and some equipment on it, nothing more —and planted his boots on the solid rock of the ringwall's crest. With a twist of his shoulders to settle the weight of his bulky backpack he shambled over to the packet of seismic instruments and the fluorescent marker that the priest had left there.
"He came right up to the top and now he's off on the yellow brick road, playing Moon explorer. Stupid bastard."
Did you really think you'd leave human stupidity behind you? a voice in his head asked. Or human guilt?
Reluctantly he looked into the crater. The brutally short horizon cut across the middle of its floor, but the central peak stuck its worn head up among the solemn stars. Beyond it there was nothing but dizzying blackness, an abrupt end to the solid world and the beginning of infinity.
Damn the priest! God's gift to geology. And I've got to play guardian angel for him.
Kinsman turned back and looked outward from the crater rim. He could see the lighted radio mast and squat return rocket, far below on the plain. He even convinced himself that he saw the mound of rubble marking their buried base shelter, where Bok lay curled safely in his bunk. The Russian base was far over the horizon, almost on the other side of the Mare Nubium. He could talk to the Russians by bouncing a signal off one of the commsats orbiting the Moon. But what good would that do? They were much farther away from the wandering priest than he was.
"Any sign of him?" Bok's voice asked.
"Sure," Kinsman retorted. "He left me a big map with an X to mark the treasure."
"Don't get sore at me!"
"Why not? You're sitting inside. I've got to find our fearless geologist."
"Regulations say one man's got to remain in the base at all times."
But not the same one man, Kinsman replied silently.
"Anyway," Bok went on, "he's still got a few hours' 139 oxygen left. Let him putter around inside the crater for a while. He'll come back under his own power."
"Not before his air runs out. Besides, he's officially missing. Missed his last two check-in calls. Houston knows it, by now. My assignment is to scout his last known position. Another of those sweet regs."
Silence again. Bok did not like being alone in the Base, Kinsman knew.
"Why don't you come on back in," the astronomer's voice said at last, "until he calls in. Then you can go out again and get him with the jumper. You'll be running out of air yourself before you can find him in the crater."
"I've got to try."
"You can't make up the rules as you go along. Kinsman! This isn't the Air Force; you're not a hotshot jet jockey anymore. NASA has rules, regulations. They'll ground you if you don't follow their game plan."
