The Mouse On The Moon: eBook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 2)

by Leonard Wibberley

  "I have to warn you that there would be grave risks involved for the astronauts concerned—risks I would not like to be called upon to ask them to take," said Dr. Meidel

  "Aw nuts," said the Secretary of Defense, who for many years had chafed under the cautious approach of the scientific hierarchy of government. "What kind of a state is this country in if we can't ask some of our young men to take a calculated risk on behalf of the United States? I know that any of the men we have trained as astronauts would leap at the chance. They are sick of delays and being fitted into space suits and asked whether they chafe them under the arms or are too tight across the seat. They'd go this very minute if we asked them and thank us for the honor."

  "Well," said the President, "when could we be ready for the take-off?"

  "Blast-off," said Dr. Meidel, who liked the sporty vernacular of the rocket man. "I’ll have to check, Mr. President. I can't answer that question off the cuff. It is all very well for some to talk about scientific fussiness, but a rocket such as our Saturn Mark Two is a more complicated piece of apparatus than a city like New York with all its telephone, electrical and other services. Then there's the weather factor…"

  "Bah," snorted the Defense Secretary. "Columbus didn't wait on the weather."

  "I was wondering when somebody was going to mention Columbus," said the Secretary of State.

  "What's your best guess, Doctor?" asked the President, pressing mercilessly for a commitment.

  "A week—maybe ten days," replied Meidel.

  "I feel that I should warn you again, sir, about making a spectacle of ourselves by entering before the world into a space race with Grand Fenwick," said the Secretary of State. "We will be accused of exactly what we are trying to avoid being accused of—determination to dominate outer space in our own national interests."

  "I think we should keep one thing clearly before us, gentlemen," said the President. "Since we have so far found it impossible to achieve a reliable agreement with the Soviet Union over the internationalizing of space, domination is the only path left open to us. Either we dominate or they do and if that's what the choice is, it is going to be us."

  The Defense Secretary shifted in his seat, took out a cigarette, examined it thoughtfully and tamped the tobacco in it by tapping the end against the polished top of the conference table. He was a big, heavy-set man with a forthright way of talking which people often took for rudeness or bad temper. But behind the bluntness of his speech there was often considerable subtlety of mind and he displayed some of that subtlety now.

  "We could say that our object is to help Grand Fenwick," he said, examining the end of the tamped cigarette carefully.

  "Help Grand Fenwick?" echoed the President.

  "Sure," said the Defense Secretary. "We're not trying to get there first or compete with them in any way. But going to the moon is a dangerous business. We are just going to send a rocket there to stand by and see that the Grand Fenwick boys don't get into any trouble. It's just a matter of being available in case they need us.

  "Of course, there isn't anything to stop us raising Old Glory on the moon if we happen to get there first. And the chances are that we will get there first—about two and a half hours after blast-off. But that's not our object. Our object is to render assistance to our Grand Fenwick friends in case they need it." He took a long pull on his cigarette, stubbed it out in the ash tray and looked mildly around him, as if to see whether everybody had understood what he had in mind.

  "By thunder! That sounds like the best idea that's come up yet," said the President. "We ought to be clear about one thing, though. Do we get to the moon before Grand Fenwick or after them?"

  "Before," said the Secretary of Defense with a slight smile. "We announce, however, that our effort is to render assistance, if needed, to the Grand Fenwick astronauts. We emphasize that we are not trying to beat Grand Fenwick to the moon. But factors of weather, rocket speed, and so on may result in our arriving on the moon first—though our object is international cooperation and help for another country."

  "I'm for that," said the Secretary of State. It would be a tremendous gesture and enormously add to our prestige and demonstrate that we actually are capable of getting to the moon."

  "Do we make a public announcement?" asked the President.

  "Sure, Chief," said the Defense Secretary. "Have a press conference tomorrow, extend our hearty congratulations to Grand Fenwick, mention that it was American money and aid that made the feat possible, stress that we were seeking internationalization of space and so on. And then say smoothly that we will be sending a rocket of our own to the moon to stand by in case the Grand Fenwick rocket gets into trouble."

  "It will immediately allay all the public anger about being beaten by Grand Fenwick," said the Secretary of State.

  "Okay," said the President. He turned to Dr. Meidel. "Get the rocket and the men ready," he said. "You've got the ball now. Don't fumble it."

  The news of the take-off of the Grand Fenwick rocket reached Russia through the Tass radio monitoring service as well as the Reuters teletype in the offices of Pravda.

  It produced no national sensation as in the United States for the reason that the people were kept ignorant of the event and in any case had been informed only that morning by Pravda that the Grand Fenwick effort was a massive propaganda bid by the American imperialists, the money having actually been spent on bathtubs.

  That the money had not been spent on bathtubs provided as much of a shock to the Government of the Soviet Union as it did to the Government of the United States.

  A crisis meeting of the Soviet cabinet was immediately held, paralleling that held in the White House. The discussion followed much the same lines as the American conference. The Defense Secretary pressed for the sending of a Russian rocket immediately to the moon to get ahead of the Grand Fenwick rocket. The Commissar for Foreign Affairs argued that this might be resented in Albania—a nation the Soviet Union was having some trouble keeping in line.

  It was the Minister for Propaganda who supplied the solution. "Let us send a rocket there to help our comrade workers in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick," he said. "No exception can be taken to that."

  "Does our rocket arrive there before the Grand Fenwick rocket?" asked one of the members of the cabinet.

  "Before," said the Minister of Defense, "but we point out that we are only trying to be helpful—to assist our comrade astronauts from Grand Fenwick."

  "Comrade workers," someone interrupted. "We must beware of cultism."

  "There is nothing to stop us raising the Glorious Flag of the Revolution on the moon after we arrive first—which we shall do," said the Minister of Defense.

  "What do we do about the Pravda story on the bathtubs?" somebody asked.

  "We will attribute it to American sources and expose it as a capitalist lie," was the reply.

  And so Russia and the United States readied high-velocity rockets to get to the moon ahead of Grand Fenwick. Meanwhile the Grand Fenwick rocket plugged steadily on into space at a thousand miles an hour.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Vincent of Mountjoy found the journey to the moon somewhat tedious although it was exciting enough in the first couple of days. He had been fascinated to watch through the retro-periscopes with which the rocket was equipped, the earth revolving magnificently below them, its continents gleaming with platinum brightness in the sun when not obscured by cloud. But after a while the sight paled and he began to feel like a man who was condemned to sit in a planetarium for a long period watching the astronomical display upon its dome.

  He had never taken much interest in astronomy and though he was surprised at the blackness of the heavens once they were fairly on their way, and the intensity with which the stars burned in that blackness, and was enchanted by the softer glow of the planets, weaving their way across the void, he finally became bored by it all. Nor was there much about the mechanism of the rocket to keep him busy. The mechanism was basically simple and it a
ll worked. There was nothing for him to do but the cooking and cleaning up, disposing of the tin cans out of which their meals came through pressurized ports of a design somewhat similar to torpedo tubes.

  Unfortunately the microwave radio with which they had intended to communicate daily with Grand Fenwick failed after the first few hours of flight. It would neither receive nor send and Dr. Kokintz, after examining it, announced that it had become radioactive as a result of the Pinotium 64 fuel which, with the bin of iron filings, powered the rocket.

  "It will probably work again when we reach the moon and the reactor is turned off. Until then…" He shrugged and looked a little sad. "I had not thought to be so long without news of the bobolinks," he said.

  To cheer him up Vincent brought out the chessboard and the scientist brightened and put the pieces in place. "Watch the pawns," he said. "Poor players always neglect them. But the real power in chess lies with the little pawns, who, though limited in their movements, can, by cooperation, threaten knights, bishops, queens and even kings. There is room for a thesis on the possibility that the game of chess, the most ancient game in the world, provided men with the key to the evolution of democratic forms of government." He went on with his explanation of the game as an exercise in both strategy and philosophy, and Vincent became completely absorbed in it.

  Meanwhile there was a tremendous flurry of activity in both the United States and Russia as these two nations readied the most powerful of their rockets to race Grand Fenwick's ambling space ship to the moon—in the guise, of course, of being ready to help the Grand Fenwick astronauts. The United States' effort characteristically started off with a committee meeting of top rocket men, which was unfortunate. These, confronted with the problem of how to get a rocket to the moon and back, split into technical subcommittees to deal with such matters as fuel, air conditioning, interior heat control, exterior heat control, telemetry, waste disposal, health maintenance and psychological aspects of space travel. There was even a librarians' committee to advise on what books should be carried and inside of two days as many as fifteen hundred people were swarming around on the U.S. rocket venture, each convinced that his own aspect of the problem was the one of vital importance.

  In vain the President consulted with Dr. Meidel urging him to hasten the American effort and demanding that all red tape be cut and the rocket released. Dr. Meidel had a mind like a mosaic in that, if one tiny stone was missing, this seemed to him more important than the whole picture. He swamped the President with such a deluge of information on the various aspects of the rocket preparation that the Chief Executive was all but drowned in the details and, though he several times lost his temper, was unable to spur the rocket men under Dr. Meidel any faster.

  "Even when all is got together," said Dr. Meidel at one of his many meetings with the President, "we still have to take the weather into consideration. And over that, I am afraid, we have no control."

  "Weather or no weather, I want that rocket off to get to the moon before the Grand Fenwick rocket," snapped the President.

  "Mr. President," said Dr. Meidel, "forgive me for reminding you of the other side of this coin. If we fail—if the rocket explodes, or goes into an orbit in space or crashes on the moon through failure of the landing gear—the disaster would be far more terrible than Grand Fenwick getting there before us. Besides, since the Grand Fenwick rocket is not in communication with the earth, we do not know whether those aboard it are alive. We know that the rocket is still on its way. We are able to pick up the reactor emission on radar. But whether Vincent of Mountjoy and Dr. Kokintz are still alive—that we cannot say."

  "All I am asking," said the President, "is that you cut out some of these committee meetings and get the rocket ready."

  "Mr. President," said Dr. Meidel smoothly, "you are over concerned. The U.S. rocket will have a speed of eighty thousand miles an hour. Less than three hours after taking off from Cape Canaveral, it will have reached the moon. We can launch then when the Grand Fenwick rocket is only three thousand miles from the moon, and still get there before them. It is perhaps fortunate," he added, "that they are not in radio communication with earth. Otherwise they might speed up."

  With that the President had to be satisfied and the committee meetings of the American "crash program" went on.

  In Russia matters were somewhat different. Such committee meetings as were held were convened not for exploration and discussion but so that those involved could report on progress and receive orders. But Russia had her problems too. The only Soviet rocket capable of the journey had been equipped with a space platform in the nose section which had been intended to be put in orbit around the moon. This had to be removed and replaced with a compartment for the two Russian astronauts. This called for a considerable revamping of the Russian rocket and, the Soviet program being rigid, the revamping was difficult to achieve. But the Soviet rocket scientists, like those in America, were confident of success. Their rocket would do 100,000 miles an hour and, being 20,000 miles an hour faster than the American rocket, could readily pass the U.S. space ship even if both were launched at the same time.

  The Soviet strategy indeed was to wait for word of the American launching. They would then launch half an hour later, calling world attention to this fact, and when they got to the moon first, would gain all the greater prestige from their late start.

  Meanwhile, all in Grand Fenwick were in deep distress about the radio silence from the Duchy's space ship. Tully Bascomb sent signals on his transmitter every hour on the hour but without obtaining contact. The whole Duchy was afraid of what might have happened to their two astronauts, and their fear was such that, by tacit agreement, they did not discuss the radio silence and what it might mean with each other lest in some way the discussion itself might bring about that which they feared.

  Gloriana, on the advice of her consort Tully, did issue a short statement to the people of Grand Fenwick on the subject.

  "Radio silence from the rocket," the statement said, "cannot but cause us concern. But in every great venture there must be setbacks and we would be unworthy of our two astronauts if we allowed ourselves to become despondent at this point. The rocket is maintaining both its course and its speed, and there can be no question but that both Dr. Kokintz and Vincent of Mountjoy are alive and well. We, whose task it is to wait, must match their courage with our own. In the silences of space, they also must endure this lack of communication which weighs so anxiously upon us. There is here a bond of suffering which, met with patience, will add to the nobility of that which they have set out to achieve. Let us then continue with our daily work in good heart and with trust in God, Who has ever had us in His care."

  In a short taped radio interview, Cynthia Bentner said, "I can only pray that all is well and my man will come back safely to me."

  The world, divided on every other point, joined in that prayer.

  It was not until the fourth day out that the moon began to show any dramatic increase in size to the two astronauts in the Grand Fenwick space ship. On leaving earth's magnifying atmosphere the moon had been enormously reduced and its growth in the days that followed, though perceptible, was not striking. But on the fourth day it started to swell tremendously and the various "seas" and craters and mountain ranges on it could be plainly seen with the naked eye, though still quite tiny. At the start of the voyage the moon had been at an angle of over fifty degrees from the course of the rocket. That angle, as the moon sped through the heavens at a rate which Dr. Kokintz said was .063 miles per second, to the point at which they would rendezvous with it, had now been reduced to around twenty degrees.

  The moon then lay to the right and ahead of the rocket rather than to the right and behind it as had been the case at the start. It was soon the dominant body of the sky, far more imposing than the flaming ball of the sun and the remoter stars. It began now to grow bigger and more majestic with the passing of each hour. Stars, which had been plainly in view before, were lost behind its loomi
ng bulk. Craters which, when first seen, had been but the size of match heads, now grew, as the days went by, to the size of shillings and then half-crowns. Vincent was amazed at the extent of them.

  "My God!" he cried, examining one huge crater, as big as a football though still sixty or seventy thousand miles off. "How big are those things?"

  "That one," said Dr. Kokintz, "is called the Bally Crater after the man who identified it. It is one hundred and eighty miles in diameter. If we were to land in the center of it, we would not know we were there, for the crater walls would be far out of view over the lunar horizon from us."

  "How high are the walls of the craters?" Vincent asked.

  "The highest about thirty thousand feet," replied Kokintz. "The equivalent almost of the peak of Mount Everest on Earth. Others are twenty thousand. That would be an average height."

  "Steep?" asked Vincent

  "Yes," said Kokintz. "But that won't bother us exploring. Even I, weighing only one-sixth as much as I do on earth, but with the same muscles, will be able to jump fifteen or twenty feet straight up at a leap, on the moon."

  Vincent did a little mental arithmetic and said, "In that case we should be able to get to the top of a thirty thousand-foot crater on the moon in an hour."

  "Yes," said Kokintz. "Exploring will not be very exhausting. The dangers are from heat, cold, ultraviolet rays and the nature of the surface."

  Vincent spent the next several hours rechecking the pressurized space suits obtained (secondhand through war surplus) from the United States along with the rocket. He checked the valves and regulators on the oxygen tanks they would carry on their backs, rather like scuba divers on earth with the difference that they would use re-breathing equipment which would conserve their oxygen while getting rid of carbon dioxide produced in respiration. He was tired when he went to bed and Dr. Kokintz was already asleep, his thick glasses still on his nose. Vincent removed them gently and pulled the metal shutters over the ports of the compartment to produce darkness, for since they were in space and not rotating, there was no day and night on the rocket. It was bathed at all times in the eternal burning merciless light of the sun. The darkness gave him a sense of security but lying on his bunk there came to him for the first time, just before he fell asleep, the sudden acute realization that they were alone in space, dizzily out in the void, far, far from the safety of earth.