Kinsman reeled in the antenna and fired it out again. "Where in hell are you?"
A cough, with pain behind it. "Shouldn't have done it. Disobeyed. And no water, nothing ..."
Great! Kinsman raged. He's either hysterical or deliri- ous. Or both.
After firing the spool antenna a third time, Kinsman flicked on the lamp atop his helmet and looked at the radio direction-finder dial on his forearm. The priest had his suit radio open and the carrier beam was coming through even though he was no longer talking. The gauges alongside the radio-finder reminded Kinsman that he was about halfway down on his oxygen. More than an hour had elapsed since he had last spoken to Bok.
"I'm trying to zero in on you," Kinsman called. "Are you hurt? Can you—"
"Don't, don't, don't. I disobeyed and now I've got to pay for it. Don't trap yourself, too . . ." The heavy reproachful voice lapsed into a mumble that Kinsman could not under- stand.
Trapped. Kinsman could picture it. The priest was using a canister suit, a one-man walking cabin, a big, plexidomed, rigid metal can with flexible arms and legs sticking out of it. A man could live for days inside it, but it was too clumsy for climbing. Which is why the crater was off-limits.
He must've fallen and now he's stuck, like a goddamned turtle on its back.
"The sin of pride," he heard the priest babbling. "God forgive us our pride. I wanted to find water; the greatest 142 discovery a man can make on the Moon. . . . Pride, nothing but pride . . ."
Kinsman walked slowly, shifting his eyes from the direction-finder to the roiled, pockmarked ground underfoot. He jumped across a two-meter drop between terraces. The finder's needle snapped to zero.
"Your radio still on?"
"No use ... go back ..."
The needle stayed fixed. Either I broke it or I'm right on top of him.
He turned a full circle, slowly scanning the rough ground as far as his light could reach. No sign of the canister. Kinsman stepped to the terrace edge. Kneeling with deliber- ate care, so that his backpack would not unbalance him and send him sprawling down the tumbled rocks, he peered over,
In a zigzag fissure a few meters below him was the priest, a giant armored insect gleaming white in the glare of the lamp, feebly waving with one free arm,
"Can you get up?" Kinsman saw that all the weight of the cumbersome suit was on the pinned arm. Banged up his backpack, too.
"Trying to find the secrets of God's creation . . . storming heaven with rockets. . . . We say we're seeking knowledge but we're really after our own glory ..."
Kinsman frowned. He could not see the older man's face behind the canister's heavily tinted visor. Just as he could not see the face of the cosmonaut, years ago.
"I'll have to bring the jumper down here."
The priest rambled on, coughing spasmodically. Kins- man got to his feet.
