The Aztec's tail fins were buried in what appeared to be a powdery ash. The rocket was canted slightly but, he thought, not dangerously so. Larkwell broke out the rope ladder provided for descent and was looking busy. Now it was his turn to shine. He hooked the ladder over two pegs and let the other end fall to the ground. He tested it then straightened up and turned to Crag.
"You may depart, Sire."
Crag grinned and started down the ladder. It was clumsy work. The bulk and rigidity of his suit made his movements uncertain, difficult. He descended slowly, testing each step. He hesitated at the last rung, thinking: This is it! He let his foot dangle above the surface for a moment before plunging it down into the soft ash mantle, then walked a few feet, ankle deep in a fine gray powder. First human foot to touch the moon, he thought. The first human foot ever to step beyond the world. Yeah, the human race was on the way—led by Adam Philip Crag. He felt good.
It occurred to him then that he was not the real victor. That honor belonged to a man 240,000 miles away. Gotch had won the moon. It had been the opaque-eyed Colonel who had directed the conquest. He, Crag, was merely a foot soldier. Just one of the troops. All at once he felt humble.
Prochaska came down next, followed by Nagel. Larkwell was last. They stood in a half-circle looking at each other, awed by the thing they had done. No one spoke. They shifted their eyes outward, hungrily over the plain, marveling at the world they had inherited. It was a bleak, hostile world encompassed in a bowl whose vast depressed interior alternately was burned and frozen by turn. To their north the rim of Arzachel towered ten thousand feet, falling away as it curved over the horizon to the east and west. The plain to the south was a flat expanse of gray punctuated by occasional rocky knolls and weird, needle-sharp pinnacles, some of which towered to awesome heights.
Southeast a long narrow spur of rock rose and crawled over the floor of the crater for several miles before it dipped again into its ashy bed. Crag calculated that a beeline to Bandit would just about skirt the southeast end of the spur. Another rock formation dominated the middle-expanse of the plain to the south. It rose, curving over the crater floor like the spinal column of some gigantic lizard—a great crescent with its horns pointed toward their present position. Prochaska promptly dubbed it "Backbone Ridge," a name that stuck.
Crag suddenly remembered what he had to do, and coughed meaningfully into his lip mike. The group fell silent. He faced the distant northern cliffs and began to speak:
"I, Adam Crag, by the authority vested in me by the Government of the United States of America, do hereby claim this land, and all the lands of the moon, as legal territory of the United States of America, to be a dominion of the United States of America, subject to its Government and laws."
When he finished, he was quiet for a minute. "For the record, this is Pickering Field. I think he'd like that," he added. There was a lump in his throat.
Prochaska said quietly, "Gotch will like it, too. Hadn't we better record that and transmit it to Alpine?"