Alan tapped Stan on the shoulder, told the pilot he was going outside. He slipped through the hatch and climbed on top of the lurching tank, squatting there and slamming a fresh ammo pan into his atomic rifle.
The trip across the crater had consumed ten minutes of the time left for Earth. What remained—twenty minutes? Twenty-five?
Suddenly, the moon tank shuddered beneath Alan's feet. They had come within range sooner than he had expected. He felt himself hurled away, and tumbled across the rocks as the tank burst briefly into flame, devouring in seconds the oxygen stored in the fuel tanks. With an eerie, noiseless blast, the tank exploded.
Alan scrambled forward across the rocks. Somehow, he had managed to hold his atomic rifle. He wondered if the mechanism had been damaged by his fall.
He didn't have time to think about it. The other tank, now less than fifty yards away, was coming toward him. He fired once, forced to reveal his position. A spacesuited figure fell from the tank, but another climbed up through the hatch to join the man still kneeling there.
The tank was thirty yards away now, still coming.
Concealed partially behind an out-cropping of rock, Alan fired again, saw a second figure tumble off the roof of the tank, rolling down a steep incline. The third man was returning his fire, but wildly. At the last moment he tried to scramble within the hatch, but his glassite helmet exploded as one of Alan's pellets caught it.
The tank was upon him, its caterpillar treads rolling soundlessly across the rock. Flinging his rifle out of the way, Alan dove between the two great treads and clung there. He could feel the jagged rocks cutting into his spacesuit, scraping it, weakening the fabric. In seconds, the fabric would rupture.
There was a hatch on the under-belly of the tank. Dragged along, Alan held on with one hand and pried at the hatch with the other. He was bruised and shaken by the rocks.