In less than ten minutes six men would have fulfilled a centuries-old dream of conquest, having reached the moon alive—or else there would be another smaller crater fifty miles from Tycho, a tiny cup of steam and heat and vaporized metal in the vastness of the lunar silence.
Captain Harper gazed hypnotically at the screen in front of his contour berth add wondered if it would do any good to pray. Professor Jantz, mathematician and astronomer, attempted to stave off an elemental fear by working out the cube of 789. Doctors Jackson and Holt, geologist and chemist, exchanged whispered instructions in the impossible possibility that either would survive the other. Pegram, the navigator, stroked a rabbit’s paw; and Davis, the engineer, silently recited “The Golden Journey to Samarkand,” while clutching a battered photograph of the girl he might have married.
“Sixty seconds to firing point,” boomed the autoannouncer. “Forty-five seconds . . . thirty seconds . . . fifteen seconds . . . ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one—zero! ”
A sudden surge of power slammed the men deep into the mattresses of their contour berths. The port and starboard visulators showed a jet of yellow-green fire reaching down toward the moon from the stem of the ship.
After days of zero gravity, the sudden G-force developed a merciless pressure until it seemed as if human veins were filled with mercury, as if bone and tissue had been abruptly transmuted to lead.
On the visulator screen a long row of mountain fangs swept by, seeming to miss the ship’s now extended spider-legs by inches. A smooth area of lava bed flashed into view, growing with terrifying speed until every detail, every fragment of rock, was sharply outlined.
Now the rocket motors were delivering maximum energy. There was no sound aboard the moonship, but it seemed as if that tremendous liberation of chemical power had created a silent banshee moan that racked every girder, every metal plate, every human fiber with its high, penetrating message.
Professor Jantz was no longer working out the cube of 789: he was unconscious. His companions, with varying degrees of discomfort, stared through mists of semiconsciousness at the bright pattern of images flashing on the bulkhead visulators.
The entire cosmos seemed to be pictured on the starboard, port, and stem screens. The seconds ticked by, recorded by the thin red needle of the electrochron, hammering out their message like distant gunfire.
“Sixty seconds to zero altitude,” boomed the autoannouncer.
Instinctively the men strained to look at each other, to exchange smiles of farewell or anticipatory grins of triumph.
“Forty-five seconds . . . thirty seconds . . . fifteen seconds . . . ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one—zero!”
There was silence—the loudest silence ever known. And stillness. Then relief.
As the three spider-legs contacted the lunar surface, the moonship’s automatic pilot synchronized the fading of rocket motors with the vessel’s fast diminishing momentum. The spindly legs bit cautiously through an inch or two of liquid rock to the hard layer below. There was no bump, no sudden lurch, no sickening wobble. Only the end of something. The end of movement, of accelerating G-forces, of flashing images on the visulator screens, of fear and discomfort. . . . The end of a brief but colossal climax of stress.
Captain Harper was the first to find his voice. “Zero altitude,” he said quietly. “Only the good die young!”
Professor Jantz opened his eyes, Pegram, the navigator, surreptitiously put away his rabbit’s paw, and Davis stopped reciting “The Golden Journey” to himself. They began to undo their contour-berth straps, and presently, feeling the steady, lazy tug of one-sixth gravity, everyone crowded up into the observation dome.
Twenty-four hours later the moonship stood like a three-legged skeleton with only the personnel sphere set perkily on top of its tubular backbone. At the base of this hundred-foot-high derelict that had completed its first and last journey through space, there lay a lunar tractor and trailer, a neat stack of curved metal plates, and a large number of crates of varying shapes and sizes.
The early sunlight cast long shadows in fantastic patterns behind all the goods and chattels of the advance expedition. Large and low in a jet-black sky, the green ball of earth dominated its background of stars.
Meanwhile, on the navigation deck in the personnel sphere, Captain Harper was holding a final conference prior to abandoning ship.
“In four weeks, gentlemen,” he was saying, “Number Two ship will arrive. Its cargo, as you know, will be mainly food and two more lunar tractors. If we can have the base well established by then, and if we manage to complete the preliminary survey, a great deal of time will be saved and the equatorial expedition will be able to get straight off the mark. ... As there are only six of us, it’s pretty obvious that we’ve got our work cut out. First thing, of course, is to get a living unit fixed up. Until that’s done, there’ll be no time for anything else. . . . Dr. Jackson, you’re the geologist. Have you come across any likely niches where we can erect the unit safely?”
“I’ve found a perfect site,” answered Jackson. “It’s about a mile away, practically in a direct line with Tycho and the ship. There’s a thirty-foot fissure with an overhanging shelf. It’ll give perfect protection against meteorites. But we shall have to fix up a permanent staircase because the walls are damn near vertical all around.”
“How many living units will it contain?” asked Harper.
“At least three. I see no reason why it shouldn’t house three units and the laboratory. And if, eventually, they decide to increase the expedition, there are several nearby crevices where one or two extra units could be placed.”
“Dr. Holt, you explored the place with Jackson. What’s your verdict?” The Captain looked inquiringly at the chemist, who, being only thirty, was the youngest member of the party.
“There are plenty of ratholes around,” said Holt, “but none of ’em quite so convenient. I agree with Jackson. We could do a lot worse.”
“We’d better load up, then,” said Captain Harper, reaching for the headpiece of his pressure suit. “The sooner we get the first unit erected, the better.” He gazed through a plastiglass porthole. “Something tells me we’re going to get thoroughly fed up with this dead landscape before we’re through. . . . Any questions?”
“It’s time to make a radio check with Earth,” said Pegram. “Do you want to send a message, sir?”
Captain Harper lifted the headpiece and smoothed back his thick gray hair. “Tell them,” he said humorlessly, “that this place is so dead, if we saw a blade of grass we’d probably scream.”
It took three more terrestrial days to set up the living unit in the fissure that Dr. Jackson had selected—by which time the sun had risen clear of the distant mountain ranges and hung like a blinding fireball in the black, star-pricked sky.
The lunar day, in length a terrestrial fortnight, had now reached the high flush of midmoming.
While they were erecting the first living unit, Captain Harper and his companions ate and slept in the pressurized tractor, which was large enough to accommodate the six of them comfortably. Later, when it was used for long-distance-reconnaissance work, they would have to live in it for over a week at a time. This first experience of life in its compact quarters was valuable training.
Now and again, between the endless tasks of hauling and erecting, one or another of the men would take a few minutes off just to stand and gaze and marvel at the hard, lifeless landscape under its roof of darkness.
They would become thunderstruck at their own smallness, at their colossal achievement, and at the notion that they themselves were probably the first organic life form ever to be established bn the moon.
Fifty miles away, toward the lunar south pole, the crater Tycho displayed its sharp mountain ring with perfect clarity—like teeth over the faintly curved horizon. There were no atmospheric mists to soften its contours or take the edge of fire from its sunlit peaks.
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p; Stretching away into the distance on every side of the fissure where Base One had been erected, the lava plains were covered with a two-inch layer of meteoric dust that fell as rapidly as it was disturbed and retained footprints like new snow. When the lunar tractor swayed by in eerie silence, the dust was ploughed back to leave a caterpillar-indented road. There was not much danger of wandering away from base and getting lost on the moon when footprints left a trail that, unless it was disturbed, would remain clear for thousands of years.
By the fourth terrestrial day the expedition was established in its subterranean living unit. Most of the routine fetch-and-carry work was over. Now the real business of experiment and exploration could begin.
It was decided that Doctors Jackson and Holt, with Davis, the engineer, should take the tractor and make a survey of ten miles’ radius, keeping radio contact. They were to return in six hours.
Captain Harper would have joined them, but conscience kept him tied down to a pile of routine work at base. And Professor Jantz, having sampled the lunar dust, was completely absorbed in calculations relating to meteoric bombardment. Pegram, the remaining member of the expedition, had his own work to do. Apart from maintaining radio contact with Earth, he would also keep in touch with the tractor.
After a restless three-hour duty sleep, Jackson, Holt, and Davis went into the dining room at Base One and ate a hearty breakfast.
Professor Jantz, with a finger calculator on one side of his plate and a reference book on the other, peered at them through blue-tinted glasses.
“I want small crystals,” he said abruptly, “and anything metallic. Look out for me, Jackson, there’s a good fellow.”
Jackson swallowed a mouthful of coffee and laughed. “What do you think 1 want, Professor? If there’s anything worth having, we’ll bring it back.”
The professor nodded, then demanded with seeming irrelevance, “Why is there no oxygen on the moon?”
Dr. Holt put down his fork, and gazed at the mathematician curiously. “You are aware of the conventional reasons, Professor?”
“Naturally—-but they are not good enough.”
“What makes you think that?”
Professor Jantz treated the younger man to a secretive smile. “My calculations,” he said happily. “We are all going to be surprised.”
“Bet you a double ration of brandy,” said Dr. Jackson, “that there is definitely no trace of oxygen in any form.”
Professor Jantz was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I am not only prepared to take your bet, Dr. Jackson; I am prepared to make an additional wager. I prophesy that we shall discover signs of organic life.”
“A week’s tobacco says we won’t.”
“Good. I am a heavy smoker.” The professor’s confidence was such that he gave the impression of already having actual confirmation.
“Since you are so dogmatic,” said Dr. Holt thoughtfully, “you might help us to prove your point by suggesting the type we must look for.”
“It will have been sleeping for millions of years,” said the professor. “We shall find it in caves or chasms, but not, I think, near the main craters.”
“Stop being enigmatic,” said Jackson. “What the devil are you getting at?”
“Coal,” said the professor impressively. “Beautiful carboniferous coal.”
“Nuts!” retorted Jackson.
“Nuts and dust,” said Jantz calmly, returning to his calculations.
They had been away from base about twenty minutes. Davis was driving, and the tractor was making a steady twelve miles an hour. Dr. Jackson sat by his side in the pressurized compartment with a sketch pad strapped to his knee. Every now and then he made a few key notes or a diagram, and when he was not doing that he talked to Pegram, back at base, over the radio.
Dr. Holt was outside the tractor, squatting in the crow’s nest with a cine-camera. His only means of contact with the two occupants was his personal radio. The sun beat mercilessly down on his pressure suit and headpiece; but as yet the insulation was doing a good job, and he felt reasonably comfortable.
“Hello, Base One. Hello, Base One,” said Jackson. “We are four miles south of you, heading roughly toward Tycho. The going is comparatively smooth, and the tractor handles well. Tell Professor Jantz that the dust layer gets deeper in some of the ruts and bubbleholes. Very slight evidence of a tendency to drift. Over to you.” “Hello, tractor. Hello, tractor. Professor Jantz has fixed up the seismograph. He requests an exploration when you are about ten miles away. Please inform us before detonation. Over to you.”
“Hello, Base One. We consider it a privilege- to create the first synthetic moonquake. Will let you know when we are ready. Over and out.”
“Personally,” said Davis, “I couldn’t care less. The only thing that would surprise me is if something moved.”
Suddenly Holt’s voice came urgently over the personal radio. “Stop the tractor and come out quick!”
Davis depressed the clutch and slipped into neutral. The motor gave a whine of relief.
“What is it?” called Jackson.
“Come out here and tell me,” came the enigmatic reply. Holt had already clambered out of the crow’s nest and was walking away from the tractor, peering carefully at the ground.
Davis and Jackson reached for their headpieces, screwed them down, tested oxygen and radio, then went into the airlock. A few moments later they joined Holt.
“What do you make of this?” asked Holt with suppressed excitement. He pointed down to the dust layer.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Jackson. “Man Friday himself!”
He was staring at a set of clear footprints in the telltale lunar dust. Impulsively he planted his own foot down by one of the strange prints and compared the size. His own was narrower and four inches shorter.
“Now,” said Holt, “follow the line.”
Jackson let his gaze run along the trail until it disappeared in the distance. There were two sets of prints: one coming and one going. They ran in dead straight parallel lines toward the crater Tycho.
“What do we do?” asked Davis. “Radio to base?”
“Don’t be in such a hurry,” said Jackson irritably. “The good Lord placed an ornamental bulge on the end of your neck. Try and use it.”
“I’m going to give it thirty seconds of film,” announced Holt, unslinging his cine-camera. “Looks like Professor Jantz was being a little conservative when he hit on coal as the only evidence of organic life.”
“Something has walked from the direction of Tycho,” said Jackson half to himself. “It came and apparently stood here a bit, then turned around and walked back.
Now why should it do that? It must have had a purpose.”
“Exercise,” suggested Holt flippantly. “The Lunarian idea of a constitutional.”
“I’m not in the mood for schoolboy humor,” said Jackson. “Think up something useful to say, or use less oxygen.”
Davis suddenly pointed behind them. “Do you see what I see?” he asked.
They turned around and followed his gaze. Four miles away the stripped hulk of the moonship, with its personnel sphere catching the sunlight, was clearly visible—like a low-hung star.
“Holy smoke!” said Holt. “A shy welcome committee! He, she, or it must have watched us touch down.”
“What shall we do?” asked Davis. “Follow the tracks?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jackson slowly. “This is something the bright boys didn’t bargain for. I think we’d better hotfoot back to base and have a powwow.”
“It wouldn’t do any harm to follow the tracks for a little of the way,” suggested Holt.
“What for?”
“You never know, we might pick up some more evidence that will give us a better idea of the character who made them.”
“Also,” said Jackson dryly, “we might bump into the aforementioned character. And he might invite us home for coffee and cream cakes. On the other hand, he might not ap
prove of—intruders.”
Captain Harper gazed at the faces of his five companions. “Well, we have heard Dr. Jackson’s story and seen the film of the tracks. We now have to consider what we are going to do about the situation. As you know, nothing like this was envisaged when we left Earth. . . . Any suggestions?”
Professor Jantz stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “The track marks indicate a biped of considerable stature. There is no appreciable atmosphere on the moon; therefore the creature can do without it, or else he provides his own. It would be safe, I think, to assume that he provides his own. This seems to presuppose a somewhat complex or decidedly intelligent being. The point is, would we be correct in assuming that there are many of his kind?”
“The point is, are we going to investigate?” said Dr. Holt. “Or are we going to try to avoid it or them until the next moonship arrives?”
“It or they may decide to investigate us,” observed Captain Harper dryly. “The main problem is, will they be dangerous and will they be hostile? ... I pleaded with the Organization Group to let me have some offensive weapons on this trip. But they carefully pointed out that no organic life could exist here. Silly bastards! They gave me a string of figures showing how many tons of fuel it would take to lift an ultrasonic vibrator unit. And now the whole project may be in danger because some blasted animal doesn’t subscribe to their cockeyed little theories.”
“Don’t worry about weapons, Captain,” said Holt. “The lab is operating now. In twelve hours I can dream up some rocket grenades that’ll take care of considerable opposition.”
“Also,” said Dr. Jackson, “we have enough high explosive to lay a minefield—to be detonated either by contact or radio.”
Captain Harper drummed the edge of the table with his fingers for a few moments before replying. “In any case,” he said finally, “we must have something with which to protect ourselves. My own opinion is that we must postpone action for a few hours until we have a supply of hand and rocket grenades and, perhaps, radio mines.”
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