The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke Page B

ten degrees from the vertical. And it’s so easy to climb here, even in a suit. We’ll be tied together and if one of us falls the other can still pull him up with one hand. You don’t know what it’s like until you’ve tried.’
    ‘That’s true of all forms of suicide. Oh, all right—I’m game if you are.’
    Reluctantly Wheeler climbed into his space-suit and followed his friend through the airlock. Jamieson was carrying a small telescope, a long nylon rope and other climbing equipment, which he draped around Wheeler on the pretext that, as he would have to go ahead, his hands had better be free.
    Seen from close quarters the cliffs were even more forbidding. They seemed not merely vertical but overhanging and Wheeler wondered how his friend intended to tackle them. Secretly he hoped the whole campaign would be called off.
    It was not to be. After a brief survey of the rock face Jamieson tied one end of the rope around his waist and, with a short run, leaped toward a projection thirty feet up the face of the cliff. He caught it with one hand, transferred his grip to the other and hung for a while, admiring the view. Since he weigh only forty pounds with all his equipment this was not as impressive a performance as it would have been on Earth. However, it served its purpose of reassuring Wheeler.
    After a while Jamieson grew tired of hanging by one arm and brought the other into action. With incredible speed he clambered up the face of the cliff until he was fully a hundred feet above the ground. Here he found a ledge that was to his liking as it was every bit of twelve inches wide and enabled him to lean back against the rock face.
    He switched on his headset and called down. ‘Hello, Con! Ready to come up?’
    ‘Yes. What do you want me to do?’
    ‘Is the rope tied around you?’
    ‘Just a minute. OK.’
    ‘Right! Up we go!’
    Jamieson started to haul in the rope and grinned at the other’s sudden exclamation of surprise as he found himself hoisted unceremoniously into the air. When he had been lifted twenty or thirty feet Wheeler recovered his poise and began to climb the rope himself, so that as a result of their joint efforts it was only a few seconds before he had reached the ledge.
    ‘Easy enough, isn’t it?’
    ‘So far—but it still looks a long way.’
    ‘Then just keep on climbing and don’t bother to look. Hold on here until I call you again. Don’t move until I’m ready—you’re my anchor in case I fall.’
    After half an hour Wheeler was amazed to find how far they had risen. The tractor was no more than a toy at the foot of the cliffs and the horizon was many miles away. Jamieson decided they were high enough and began to survey the plain with his telescope. It was not long before he found the object of their search.
    About ten miles away the largest spaceship either of them had ever seen lay with the sunshine glinting on its sides. Close to it was an enormous hemispherical structure rising out of the level plain. Through the telescope men and machines could be seen moving around its base. From time to time clouds of dust shot into the sky and fell back to the ground again as if blasting were in progress.
    ‘Well, there’s your mine,’ said Wheeler after a long scrutiny.
    ‘It doesn’t look much like a mine to me,’ replied the other. ‘I’ve never seen a lunar mine covered over like that. It almost looks as if a rival observatory is starting up. Maybe we’re going to be driven out of business.’
    ‘We can reach it in half an hour, whatever it is. Shall we go over to have a look?’
    ‘I don’t think it would be a very wise thing to do. They might insist on our staying.’
    ‘Hang it all, there isn’t a war on yet and they’d have no right to detain us. The Director knows where we are and would raise hell if we didn’t come back.’
    ‘Not in your case, my lad. However, I guess you’re right. They can only shoot us. Let’s go.’
    Climbing down the cliff, unlike a