0403: The Pendulum

Ziggurat #318

Suddenly, Constance was no longer beside him. Her copper-sheathed body was moving rapidly away from Lamont, not only out, but up as well. So too was the profile of the tower pitching diagonally out of view. Lamont barely had time to register the sudden change before the radio that was connected to the metal shell over his clavicle stretched taught, pulling him forward with violent force. Now, Lamont was being pulled in two directions; his feet were firmly anchored to the crazily tilting ramp of the asteroid pod, while the pneumatic seal of his cowl was pressing up against his jaw with every apparent intention of pulling his head off.

"Monty, let go!" Came the urgent voice of Constance through the speakers in his homicidal helmet.

With sudden clarity, Lamont recognized the problem. The ramp was tilting away from him, but he had kept his feet flat the whole time. He forced himself to lift his heels, and suddenly he was being dragged out of the cargo bay like a fish being reeled from a pond. He barely had time to register an odd observation: That the gap through which he was pulled was only half as large as the one through which Constance had just leapt. The hatch was closing!

That was not Lamont's immediate concern, though, as he was now floating in empty space. Trying to get his bearings, he followed the straight line of the radio tether, tracing it to the doll-like form of Constance, who was also tumbling through space a few dozen yards away from him. Above her, or so it seemed, was the colossal visage of the tower, defying all proper laws of perspective. With something approaching relief, Lamont saw that Constance was not in free fall; her arm was outstretched, and from the muzzle of her grapple gun extended a slender silver thread that was clinging doggedly to the tower.

They were not merely floating, however. They were falling; the gravity of the moon was pulling at them. Lamont realized that he was the terminator of a pendulum that was swinging with bone-shattering speed toward the metallic surface of the tower. With a desperate intuition, he gripped the radio tether with his right hand and pivoted away from Constance until he was oriented toward the moon. The sight was overwhelming. The gigantic satellite was a ghostly crescent against the dismal blue of its host. Into this hazy darkness, the colossal facade of the tower foreshortened crazily into a dully gleaming thread no more substantial than the slender cord from which he and Constance were precariously suspended. The asteroid pod was visible only as the flare of atomic jets, apparently blasting toward the moon at top speed.

"The bastard!" Lamont cursed, momentarily trying to fathom why Ed would see the need to accelerate toward the dense body that was already pulling them downward. But that was a waste of time; the side of the tower was continuing to loom larger. He looked down the barrel of his grapple and tried to line up his shot in what ultimately could be little more than a wild guess. If he got it wrong, it was doubtful that he or Constance would live to solve the mystery of Spratt's action.