He was standing behind a massive bulldozer, its heavy metal body a comforting shield between him and the unknown. The machine had been anodized a brilliant Day-Glo orange, but years of use had dulled its finish and spattered it with gray lunar dust. Munasinghe had been warned about the dust; it clung to everything and got into the hinges of spacesuits, it even clouded spacesuit visors, if you weren't careful. But he estimated that they wouldn't be out in the open long enough for the dust to be a problem.

Off to one side there was an enormous hole in the ground, a deliberate excavation. Some kind of a trap the Moonbasers were trying to build? he wondered. It looked empty, abandoned, whatever it was supposed to be. He decided it could be ignored—and avoided.

His two lieutanants crouched behind him, although they could only bend partway down in their suits. The newswoman had stayed at his elbow all the way from the spacecraft hatch to their present position.

"Very well," he said into his helmet microphone, "our forward command post is established. Now we start the advance to their main airlock."

Peering over the back of the bulldozer, he fumbled for the binoculars clipped to his equipment belt. Even the simplest tasks were troublesome in the bulky gloves. Finally he got the binoculars free, only to bump them jarringly against his visor when he tried to put them up to his eyes.

Hoping that neither his lieutenants nor the newswoman noticed his clumsiness, he held the binoculars steady while their rangefinder automatically focused the optics. Munasinghe made the fine adjustment with a gloved finger and…

The airlock hatch was open!

Munasinghe blinked and stared, not quite believing his eyes. The massive metal outer hatch had been swung open. And the inner hatch, as well. He could see the area inside, it was brightly lit. It looked entirely empty.

Of course, he thought. They took all their equipment out of the garage area to place it on the landing pads, hoping to prevent us from landing.

But why would they leave the airlock hatch open? That means the entire garage area must be in vacuum. Is this some sort of trap?

With the press of a thumb he activated the binoculars' rangefinder. Its readout appeared in the lower left of his view in red alphanumerics: one point six-six kilometers.

Munasinghe put the binoculars down and studied the ground between him and the open airlock hatch. Not much cover in the area, only a few small rocks, not enough to shelter a man from enemy fire. But there was no other way to reach the main airlock.

The open hatch bothered Munasinghe.

He pressed the stud on his forearm that opened the comm channel back to the ship and asked for Killifer.

"Killifer here."

"Can you see the main airlock?" Munasinghe asked.

"Yeah. I'm in the cockpit; I can see it on the panel display screen."

"The hatch is open!"