All three of the boys were seeing New York for the first time, not to mention most of the rest of the great globe.
But, although it was their home, although they were it from a glorious vantage point new to mankind, their attention was torn away from the earth almost at once. There was a still more breath-taking object in the sky—the sun.
Its apparent width was only one-sixteenth that of the mighty crescent earth, but it brooked no competition. It hung below the earth—below when referred to the attitude of the Galileo, not in the sense of “up” or “down”—and about four times the width of the earth away. It was neither larger nor smaller than it appears from the earth and not appreciably brighter than it is on a clear, dry desert noon. But the sky was black around it in the airless space; its royal corona shone out; its prominences could be seen; its great infernal storms showed on its face.
“Don’t look too directly at it,” Cargraves warned, “even when you have the polarizer turned to maximum interference.” He referred to the double lenses the boys wore, polaroid glass with thick outer lens that were rotatable.
“I gotta have a picture of this!” Art declared, and turned and swam away. He had forgotten that he was space sick.
He was back shortly with his Contax and was busy fitting his longest lens into it. The camera was quite old, being one of the few things his mother had managed to bring out of Germany, and was his proudest possession. The lens in place, he started to take his Weston from its case. Cargraves stopped him.
“Why burn out your light meter?” he cautioned.
Art stopped suddenly. “Yes, I guess I would,” he admitted. “But how am I going to get a picture?”
“Maybe you won’t. Better use your slowest film, your strongest filter, your smallest stop, and your shortest exposure. Then pray.”
Seeing that the boy looked disappointed, he went on, “I wouldn’t worry too much about pictures of the sun. We can be sure that to the astronomers who will follow us after we’ve blazed the trail. But you ought to be able to get a swell picture of the earth. Waste a little film on the sun first, then we will try it. I’ll shade your lens from the sunlight with my hand.”
Art did so, then prepared to photograph the earth. “I can’t get a decent light reading on it, either,” he complained. “Too much interference from the sun.”
“Well, you know how much light it is getting—the works. Why not assume it’s about like desert sunlight, then shoot a few both above and below what that calls for?”
When Art had finished Cargraves said, “Mind the sunburn, boys.” He touched the plastic inner layer of the quartz port. “This stuff is supposed to filter out the worst of it—but take it easy.”
“Shucks, we’re tanned.” And so they were; New Mexico sun had left its mark.
“I know, but that’s the brightest sunshine you ever saw. Take it easy.”
“How much chance is there,” asked Morrie, “that this pure stuff is dangerous? I mean aside from bad sunburn.”
“You read the same papers I did. We’re getting more cosmic radiation, too. Maybe it’ll knock us down dead. Maybe it’ll cause your children to have long green tendrils. That’s one of the chances we take.”
“Well, Columbus took a chance.”
“And look how far he got!,” put in Art.
“Yeah, thrown in the hoosegow for his trouble.”
“Be that as it may,” said Cargraves, “I’m going to turn the ship again so that the sun doesn’t shine in so directly. This tub is getting too hot.” It was no trouble to keep the Galileo warm enough, but how to get rid of unwanted heat was another matter. Her polished sides reflected most of the heat that struck them, but sunshine pouring directly in the view port produced a most uncomfortable greenhouse effect. Refrigeration, in the ordinary sense, was no answer; the ship was a closed system and could lose heat only by radiation to outer space. At the moment she was absorbing radiant heat from the sun much faster than she was radiating it.
“I want to take some more pictures,” Art protested.
“I’ll keep the earth in sight,” Cargraves promised, and set the controls of the spinning wheel to suit his purpose. Then he floated back to the view port and joined the others, who were swimming in front of it like goldfish in a bowl.
Ross touched the transparent wall with a finger tip; the light contact pushed him back from the port. “Doc, what do you think would happen if a meteor hit this port?”
“I don’t like to think about it. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Ley has calculated that the chance of being hit by a meteor on a trip out to the moon and back is about one in a half a million. I figure I was in much graver danger every time I climbed into that alleged automobile you guys drive.”
“That’s a good car.”
“I’ll admit it performs well.” He turned away with a motion much like that of a sprint swimmer turning on the side of a pool. “Art, when you are through snapping that Brownie, I’ve got something better for you to do. How about trying to raise earth?”
“Just one more of—Huh? What did you say?”
“How about heating up your tubes and seeing if there is anybody on the air—or lack-of-air, as the case may be?”
No attempt had been made to use the radios since blasting off. Not only did the jet interfere seriously, but also the antenna were completely retracted, even spike antenna, during the passage through the atmosphere. But now that the jet was silent an attempt at communication seemed in order.
True, the piloting radar had kept them in touch by radio, in a manner of speaking, during the early part of the journey, but they were now beyond the range of the type of equipment used for piloting. It bore little resemblance to the giant radars used to bounce signals against the moon. The quartz windows through which it operated would have been quite inadequate for the large antenna used to fling power from the earth to the moon.
Art got busy at once, while stating that he thought the chances of picking up anything were slim. “It would have to be beamed tight as a, as a, well—tight. And why would anybody be beaming stuff out this way?”
“At us, of course,” Ross offered.
“They can’t find us. Radar won’t pick up anything as small as this ship at this distance—too little mirror cross section.” Art spoke authoritatively. “Not the radars they’ve got so far. Maybe some day, if—hey!”
“What have you got?”
“Keep quiet!” Art stared ahead with that look of painful, unseeing concentration found only under a pair of earphones. He twiddled his dials carefully, then fumbled for pencil and paper. Writing, he found, was difficult without gravity to steady himself and his hand. But he scribbled.
“Get a load of this,” he whispered a few minutes later. He read:
RADIO PARIS CALLING ROCKET SHIP GALILEO RADIO PARIS CALLING ROCKET SHIP GALILEO RADIO PARIS CALLING ROCKET SHIP GALILEO DOCTOR DONALD CARGRAVES ARTHUR MUELLER MAURICE ABRAMS ROSS JENKINS GREETINGS YOUR FLIGHT FOLLOWED UNTIL OH ONE ONE THREE GREENWICH TIME SEPTEMBER TWENTYFIFTH CONTACT LOST WILL CONTINUE TO CALL YOU ON THIS BEAM AND FREQUENCY FOLLOWING PROBABLE TRAJECTORY GOOD LUCK TO YOU RADIO PARIS CALLING ROCKET SHIP GALILEO RADIO PARIS—
“And then they repeat. It’s a recording.” His voice was shaky.
“Gosh!” Ross had no other comment.
“Well, boys, it looks like we’re celebrities.” Cargraves tried to make his words sound casual. Then he found that he was holding a piece of his pipe in each hand; he had broken it in two without knowing it. Shrugging, he let the pieces float away from him.
“But how did they find us?” persisted Art.
“The message shows it,” Morrie pointed out. “See that time? That’s the time we went into free fall. They followed the jet.”
“How? By telescope?”
“More likely,” Cargraves put in, “by anti-rocket radiation tracer.”
“Huh? But the UN patrol are the only ones with that sort of gear.”
Cargraves permitted him
self a grin. “And why shouldn’t the UN be interested in us? See here, kid—can you squirt anything back at them?”
“I’ll sure try!”
ONE ATOM WAR TOO MANY?
• 11 •
ART GOT BUSY AT HIS TASK, but nothing came back which would tell him whether or not his attempts had been successful. The recording continued to come in whenever he listened for it, between attempts to send, for the next three and a half hours. Then it faded out—they were off the beam.
Nevertheless, it was the longest direct communication of record in human history.
The Galileo continued her climb up from the earth, toward that invisible boundary where the earth ceased to claim title and the lesser mass of the moon took charge. Up and up, out and farther out, rising in free flight, slowing from the still effective tug of the earth but still carried on by the speed she had attained under the drive of the jet, until at last the Galileo slipped quietly over the border and was in the moon’s back yard. From there on she accelerated slowly as she fell toward the silvery satellite.
They ate and slept and ate again. They stared at the receding earth. And they slept again.
While they slept, Joe the Robot stirred, consulted his cam, decided that he had had enough of this weightlessness, and started the jet. But first he straightened out the ship so that the jet faced toward the moon, breaking their fall, while the port stared back at earth.
The noise of the jet woke them up. Cargraves had had them strap themselves down in anticipation of weight. They unstrapped and climbed up to the control station. “Where’s the moon?” demanded Art.
“Under us, of course,” Morrie informed him.
“Better try for it with radar, Morrie,” Cargraves directed.
“Check!” Morrie switched on the juice, waited for it to warm, then adjusted it. The moon showed as a large vague mass on one side of the scope. “About fifteen thousand miles,” he declared. “We’d better do some checking, Skipper.”
They were busy for more than an hour, taking sights, taking readings, and computing. The bearing and distance of the moon, in relation to the ship, were available by radar. Direct star sights out the port established the direction of drive of the ship. Successive radar readings established the course and speed of the ship for comparison with the courses and speeds as given by the automatic instruments showing on the board. All these factors had to be taken into consideration in computing a check on the management of Joe the Robot.
Minor errors were found and the corrections were fed to the automatic pilot. Joe accepted the changes in his orders without comment.
While Morrie and Cargraves did this, Art and Ross were preparing the best meal they could throw together. It was a relief to have weight under their feet and it was a decided relief to their stomachs. Those organs had become adjusted to free fall, but hardly reconciled. Back on firm footing they hollered for solid food.
The meal was over and Cargraves was thinking sadly of his ruined pipe, when the control alarm sounded. Joe the Robot had completed his orders, his cam had run out, he called for relief.
They all scrambled up to the control station. The moon, blindingly white and incredibly huge was shouldering its way into one side of the port. They were so close to it now that their progress was visible, if one looked closely, by sighting across the frame of the port at some fixed object, a crater or a mountain range.
“Whee!” Art yelled.
“Kinda knocks your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Ross said, gazing in open wonder.
“It does,” agreed Cargraves. “But we’ve got work to do. Get back and strap yourselves down and stand by for maneuvering.”
While he complied, he strapped himself into his chair and then flipped a switch which ordered Joe to go to sleep; he was in direct, manual command of the rocket. With Morrie to coach him by instrument, he put the ship through a jockeying series of changes, gentle on the whole and involving only minor changes in course at any one time, but all intended to bring the ship from the flat conoid trajectory it had been following into a circular orbit around the moon.
“How’m I doin’?” he demanded, a long time later.
“Right in the groove,” Morrie assured him, after a short delay.
“Sure enough of it for me to go automatic and swing ship?”
“Let me track her a few more minutes.” Presently Morrie assured him as requested. They had already gone into free flight just before Cargraves asked for a check. He now called out to Art and Ross that they could unstrap. He then started the ship to swinging so that the port faced toward the moon and switched on a combination which told Joe that he must get back to work; it was now his business to watch the altitude by radar and to see to it that altitude and speed remained constant.
Art was up at the port, with his camera, by the time he and Morrie had unstrapped.
“Goshawmighty,” exclaimed Art, “this is something!” He unlimbered his equipment and began snapping frantically, until Ross pointed out that his lens cover was still on. Then he steadied down.
Ross floated face down and stared out at the desolation. They were speeding silently along, only two hundred miles above the ground, and they were approaching the sunrise line of light and darkness. The shadows were long on the barren wastes below them, the mountain peaks and the great gaping craters more horrendous on that account. “It’s scary,” Ross decided. “I’m not sure I like it.”
“Want off at the next corner?” Cargraves inquired.
“No, but I’m not dead certain I’m glad I came.”
Morrie grasped his arm, to steady himself apparently, but quite as much for the comfort of solid human companionship. “You know what I think, Ross,” he began, as he stared out at the endless miles of craters. “I think I know how it got that way. Those aren’t volcanic craters, that’s certain—and it wasn’t done by meteors. They did it themselves!”
“Huh? Who?”
“The moon people. They did it. They wrecked themselves. They ruined themselves. They had one atomic war too many.”
“Huh? What the—” Ross stared, then looked back at the surface as if to read the grim mystery there. Art stopped taking pictures.
“How about it, Doc?”
Cargraves wrinkled his brow. “Could be,” he admitted. “None of the other theories for natural causes hold water for one reason or another. It would account for the relatively smooth parts we call ‘seas.’ They really were seas; that’s why they weren’t hit very hard.”
“And that’s why they aren’t seas any more,” Morrie went on. “They blew their atmosphere off and the seas boiled away. Look at Tycho. That’s where they set off the biggest ammunition dump on the planet. It cracked the whole planet. I’ll bet somebody worked out a counter-weapon that worked too well. It set off every atom bomb on the moon all at once and it ruined them! I’m sure of it.”
“Well,” said Cargraves, “I’m not sure of it, but I admit the theory is attractive. Perhaps we’ll find out when we land. That notion of setting off all the bombs at once—there are strong theoretical objections to that. Nobody has any idea how to do it.”
“Nobody knew how to make an atom bomb a few years ago,” Morrie pointed out.
“That’s true.” Cargraves wanted to change the subject; it was unpleasantly close to horrors that had haunted his dreams since the beginning of World War II. “Ross, how do you feel about the other side of the moon now?”
“We’ll know pretty soon,” Ross chuckled. “Say—this is the Other Side!”
And so it was. They had leveled off in their circular orbit near the left limb of the moon as seen from the earth and were coasting over the mysterious other face. Ross scanned it closely. “Looks about the same.”
“Did you expect anything different?”
“No, I guess not. But I had hoped.” Even as he spoke they crossed the sunrise line and the ground below them was dark, not invisible, for it was still illuminated by faint starlight—starlight only, for the earthshine never re
ached this face. The suncapped peaks receded rapidly in the distance. At the rate they were traveling, a speed of nearly 4000 miles per hour necessary to maintain them in a low-level circular orbit, the complete circuit of the planet would take a little over an hour and a half.
“No more pictures, I guess,” Art said sadly. “I wish it was a different time of the month.”
“Yes,” agreed Ross, still peering out, “it’s a dirty shame to be this close and not see anything.”
“Don’t be impatient,” Cargraves told him; “When we start back in eight or nine days, we swing around again and you can stare and take pictures till you’re cross-eyed.”
“Why only eight or nine days? We’ve got more food than that.”
“Two reasons. The first is, if we take off at new moon we won’t have to stare into the sun on the way back. The second is, I’m homesick and I haven’t even landed yet.” He grinned. In utter seriousness he felt that it was not wise to stretch their luck by sticking around too long.
The trip across the lighted and familiar face of the moon was delightful, but so short that it was like window shopping in a speeding car. The craters and the “seas” were old familiar friends, yet strange and new. It reminded them of the always strange experience of seeing a famous television star on a personal appearance tour—recognition with an odd feeling of unreality.
Art shifted over to the motion-picture camera once used to record the progress of the Starstruck series, and got a complete sequence from Mare Fecunditatis to the crater Kepler, at which point Cargraves ordered him emphatically to stop at once and strap himself down.
They were coming into their landing trajectory. Cargraves and Morrie had selected a flat, unnamed area beyond Oceanus Procellarum for the landing because it was just on the border between the earth side and the unknown side, and thereby fitted two plans: to attempt to establish radio contact with earth, for which direct line-of-sight would be necessary, and to permit them to explore at least a portion of the unknown side.