"Even that. But cheer up, Commander. The worst is yet to come." He broke off before Crag could snap a reply. Prochaska grinned at his discomfiture.
"That's what comes of being famous," he said. "We're wheels."
"A wheel on the moon." Crag looked questioningly at him. "Is that good?"
"Damned if I know. I haven't been here long enough."
Crag was surprised to see how rapidly work in the tail section was progressing. Larkwell had loosened the giant engines and fuel tanks and pulled them from the ship with power from one of the rocket's servo motors. They lay on the dusty floor of the plain, incongruous in their new setting. He thought it a harbinger of things to come. A rocket garage on the floor of barren Arzachel. Four men attempting to build an empire from the hull of a space ship. In time it would be replaced by an airlock in a rill ... a military base ... a domed city. Pickering Field would become a transportation center, perhaps the hub of the Solar System's transportation empire. First single freighters, then ore trains, would travel the highways of space between earth mother and her long separated child. He sighed. The ore trains were a long way in the future.
Larkwell crawled out from the cavern he had hollowed in the hull and stretched. "Time for chow," he grunted. His voice over the interphones sounded tired. Nagel followed him looking morose. He didn't acknowledge Crag's presence.
At evening by earth clock they ate their scant fare. They were unusually silent. The Chief seemed weary from his long vigil on the scope. Larkwell's face was sweaty, smudged with grease. He ate quickly, with the air of a man preoccupied with weighty problems. Nagel was clearly bushed. Larkwell's fast pace had been too much for him. He wore a cross, irritable expression and avoided all conversation. Richter sat alone, seemingly unconcerned that he was a virtual prisoner, confined to one small corner of the cabin barely large enough to provide sleeping space. Crag had no feelings where he was concerned, neither resentment nor sympathy. The German was just a happenstance, a castaway in the war for Arzachel. Or, more probable, he thought, the war for the moon.
After chow the men took turns shaving with the single razor. It had been supplied only because of the need to keep the oxygen ports in the helmets free and to keep the lip mikes clear.
"Pure luxury," Prochaska said when his turn came. "Nothing's too good for the spaceman."