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ALL DAY SEPTEMBER
By ROGER KUYKENDALL
Illustrated by van Dongen
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Some men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying--when it's time to give up because it's hopeless...._
The meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveledthrough space and time since it came into being. The light from the starthat died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the firstlungfish ventured from the sea.
In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded byEvans' tractor.
It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine,and volitized upon striking the blades. Portions of the turbine alsovolitized; idling at eight thousand RPM, it became unstable. The shafttried to tie itself into a knot, and the blades, damaged and undamagedwere spit through the casing. The turbine again reached a stable state,that is, stopped. Permanently stopped.
It was two days to sunrise, where Evans stood.
It was just before sunset on a spring evening in September in Sydney.The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to bedrifting across Australia.
Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter afterAustralia.
Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknifegeologist, selenologist, rather. His tractor and equipment cost twohundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand was paid for. Therest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, whichwas usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodiumfrom the mines at Potter's dike to Williamson Town, where the rocketslanded.
When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once hefollowed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while thathe had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and ahalf, and he was lucky to break even.
Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site ofthe first landing on the Moon.
Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in aboutsixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldn'tmake it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out tomore than a month. His drinking water--kept separate from the water inthe reactor--might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was toocarefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. By diligentconservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four daysreserve--plus one is five--plus sixteen days normal supply equalstwenty-one days to live.
In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would bedark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not beginfor thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late.
* * * * *
"Well, man, 'tis a fine spot you're in now," he told himself.
"Let's find out how bad it is indeed," he answered. He reached for thelight switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the "on"position.
"Batteries must be dead," he told himself.
"What batteries?" he asked. "There're no batteries in here, the powercomes from the generator."
"Why isn't the generator working, man?" he asked.
He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by themain turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however,came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itselfthrough the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course--
"The condenser!" he shouted.
He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the lightof this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallonsof water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers,was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused inthe boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of acurved reflector that was positioned to radiate the heat of the steaminto the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine,the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered thetemperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quicklyfreezing the water in the tank.
Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closingthe shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it wouldoperate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense inthe condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, ifthe pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler.
But there was no water in the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of hisdrinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed thepipe. He pulled on a knob marked "Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass." Thewater that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, andthe steam turned the generator briefly.
Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what thetrouble was.
"The water, man," he said, "there is not enough to melt the ice in thecondenser."
He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water intothe boiler. It was three days' supply of water, if it had been carefullyused. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatiousluxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days tolive.
The generator started again, and the lights came on. They flickered asthe boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of theice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function.
"Well, man," he breathed, "there's a light to die by."
* * * * *
The sun rose on Williamson Town at about the same time it rose on Evans.It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next tothe sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might haveappeared to waver slightly, if they were behind outflung corona flares.If they did, no one noticed. No one looked toward the sun without darkfilters.
When Director McIlroy came into his office, he found it lighted by therising sun. The light was a hot, brilliant white that seemed to piercethe darkest shadows of the room. He moved to the round window, screeninghis eyes from the light, and adjusted the polaroid shade to maximumdensity. The sun became an angry red brown, and the room was dark again.McIlroy decreased the density again until the room was comfortablylighted. The room felt stuffy, so he decided to leave the door to theinner office open.
He felt a little guilty about this, because he had ordered that alldoors in the survey building should remain closed except when someonewas passing through them. This was to allow the air-conditioning systemto function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highlyimprobable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he wasdisobeying his own orders no more flagrantly than anyone else in thesurvey.
McIlroy had no illusions about his ability to lead men. Or rather, hedid have one illusion; he thought that he was completely unfit as aleader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed withcheerful contempt, but it was also true his mildest requests werecomplied with eagerly and smoothly.
Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even heaccepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit ofsuggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders hedidn't particularly care to have obeyed.
For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be noalcoholic beverages within the survey building, the en
tire survey wasassured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor.Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking.
"Good morning, Mr. McIlroy," said Mrs. Garth, his secretary. Morning toMrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking.
"Good morning indeed," answered McIlroy. Morning to him had no meaningat all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morningon the Moon for another week.
"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?" he asked. The solarfurnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat onanything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-upto sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant.
"They went out about an hour ago," she answered, "I suppose that's whatthey were going to do."
"Very good, what's first on the schedule?"
"A Mr. Phelps to see you," she