Rodan had extra keys, and
could tamper and make replacements, any time he considered it necessary.

Lester had wandered afield, somewhere. When he showed up, Nelsen jarred
him out of his studious preoccupations long enough for them both to
examine his armor. Same, identical story.

"Rodan made sure," Frank gruffed. "That S.O.B. put us on a real short
tether!"

David Lester looked frightened for a minute. Then he seemed to ease.

"Maybe it doesn't make any difference," he said. "Though I'd like to
call my mother... But I'm doing things that I like. After a while, when
the job is finished, he'll let us go."

"Yeah?" Frank breathed.

There was the big question. Nelsen figured that an old, corny pattern
stuck out all over Rodan. Personal glory emphasized to a point where it
got beyond sense. And wouldn't that unreason be more likely to get worse
in the terrible lunar desert than it ever would on Earth?

Would Rodan ever release them? Wouldn't he fear encroachment on his
archeological success, even after all his data had been made public?
This was all surmise-prediction, of course, but his extreme precautions,
already taken, did not look good. On the Moon there could easily be an
arranged accident, killing Lester, and him--Frank Nelsen--and maybe even
Dutch. Rodan's pupils had that nervous way of expanding and contracting
rapidly, too. Nelsen figured that he might be reading the signs somewhat
warpedly himself. Still...?

At the end of another shift, Nelsen took a walk, farther than ever
before, up through a twisted pass that penetrated to the other side of
the Arabian Mountains. He still had that much freedom. He wanted to
think things out. In bitter, frustrating reversal of all his former
urges to get off the Earth, he wanted, like a desperate weakling, to be
back home.

Up beyond the Arabians, he saw the tread marks of a small tractor
vehicle in a patch of dust. There was a single boot print. A short
distance farther on, there was another. He examined them with a
quizzical excitement. But there weren't any more. For miles, ahead and
behind, unimpressable lava rock extended.

Another curious thing happened, only minutes later. A thousand miles
overhead, out of reach of his sabotaged transmitter, one of those around
the Moon tour bubbs, like the unfortunate _Far Side_, was passing. He
heard the program they were broadcasting. A male voice crooned out what
must be a new, popular song. He had heard so few new song