“Contact us?” said Mitch. “You mean using me as a medium or something--oh, it’s impossible. Who are they anyway? Where do they come from?”
“The other side of the Universe,” Lemmy reminded him, “according to you or, should I say, your voice.”
“And the only way they could do that,” said Jet slowly, would be to travel through time. Yes,” he went on, his voice filled with wonder, “that could be it--time travellers.”
“Time travellers?” queried a puzzled Lemmy. “What’s he talking about, Doc?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s been known for years that the only way to get to the really distant stars is to travel through Time, but I don’t see. . .”
“What was it your voice said, Mitch?” continued Jet excitedly, “ ‘you haven’t conquered Time yet’. But they have, don’t you see? They must have done.”
Lemmy was completely at sea. “Then why couldn’t they have arrived a hundred years from now or a hundred years ago?” he demanded. “Why pick on the very time we land here?”
“And,” I pointed out, “even if we accept that theory, why should they try to scare us off and put our ship out of action?”
“Maybe they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Maybe just as scared, too.”
“Eh?” interrupted Lemmy, “them afraid of us?” “Why not?” asked Jet.
“Look,” said Lemmy, very puzzled, “if they can travel through Time, whatever that means, they must be vastly superior to us in every way.”
“Lemmy,” asked Jet, “can you fly and find your own way home, instinctively, like a homing pigeon?”
“Do I look as though I can?” retorted Lemmy.
“Well then,” said Jet, “do you consider the homing pigeon superior to you? More intelligent? Just because he can do something you can’t.”
“No, I don’t,” said Lemmy emphatically.
“Well, that’s how it might be. Perhaps whoever made that ship out there can travel in time, not because they are necessarily superior to us, but because that’s the natural way for them to travel. Maybe they couldn’t travel through space if they tried.”
“Yes,” said Lemmy slowly, “I see what you mean--I think.”
“If only we had their secret,” said Mitch. “Think of the things we could do.”
“If only we had the oxygen,” said Lemmy, “think of the time we could stay here. Aren’t we ever going home?”
“Lemmy’s got something there,” I said. “Maybe we’ve stumbled up against something that’s going to rock modern thought to its very foundations. But unless we get word of it back to Earth, and quick, it’s going to be lost forever.”
“Lemmy,” ordered Jet, “open up the radio. Call Earth, tell them we’ll be leaving in a few minutes, tell them we’re coming home.”
“That’s the best bit of news I’ve heard up to now,” said Lemmy, already halfway towards the control table.
“Doc, Mitch,” went on Jet, “start getting ready. Takeoff in thirty minutes.”
Mitch and I set to, trying to forget our strange experience and to concentrate on the job in hand. We were going home. But our business with the Moon wasn’t quite finished. The last thing we were scheduled to do before we finally headed for Earth was to encircle the Moon once and take a look at the other side--the side no man on Earth has ever seen. In Luna such a trip was a simple matter. The method was to take off, climb a few miles, turn the ship at the necessary angle until it was flying parallel with the moon’s surface, and then continue round the globe in free orbit until our nose was again pointing towards the Earth. Then the motors would be cut in, our course changed from a circular to a straight one and the long coast back to home would begin.
We strapped ourselves into our bunks and prepared to fire the motors. Before leaving, the television camera in the ship’s nose was rotated for one last look at the lunar landscape. The ship, or whatever it was, had gone. The crater was empty. Five minutes later we were on our way.
The orbit we entered was about a hundred miles above the Moon’s surface, close enough to give us a good view and to enable us to take sharp photographs of the principal features as they passed below. I was to handle the camera while Mitch and Jet observed the Moon through the televiewers.
At first sight, the far side was very little different from the Earth side. There were the same mountains, craters and plains.
“Hey, Jet,” Mitch called suddenly from his position at the control table. “Come over here, look at this.” “What is it, Mitch?”
“Directly below us now. One of the biggest craters I’ve ever seen, about twice the size of Copernicus. But it’s full of little craters, tiny ones in regular lines.”
I took a look for myself through the telescopic viewfinder of the camera. It was just as Mitch said. Such formations on the Moon are not an uncommon sight. Many of the larger craters, in fact, seem to form themselves into fairly straight lines, but the unusual thing about the domes we were now seeing was the pattern they made; it was perfectly symmetrical. There were twenty of them altogether in four lines of five.
Jet was very puzzled: “There is a tendency for craters on the Earth side to form lines of a sort,” he said, “but not like this. This doesn’t look natural.”
“It isn’t,” said Lemmy positively. “Those craters are moving.”
“What?” said Jet, in alarm.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “They’re moving all right. They’re leaving the ground.”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed Jet, “they’re not craters at all. They’re ships, just like the one that landed near us.”
“And they’re coming up here,” said Lemmy unhappily.
One by one the objects down below were taking off and climbing upwards. We were, of course, moving extremely rapidly and soon left the crater way behind us. But to keep it and the strange objects in view, Jet ordered Lemmy to switch on the stern view camera. We could now see the space ships hovering behind and below us. Soon, drawn up in a circular formation, they had risen to our level and were advancing relentlessly. We stared, horrified and yet fascinated. There was no doubt now. It was us they were after.
“Isn’t there something we can do?” broke out Lemmy. “Turn on the motor--get away from them--something?” His voice rose sharply.
“No,” said Jet firmly. “Not yet. If we turn on the motor now we’d go shooting off into space and might miss the Earth altogether. We’ve got to wait till our nose is pointing towards home.”
“They’re keeping their distance at the moment anyway,” I said, as much to reassure myself as Lemmy.
“Good God! Look at that!” exclaimed Mitch. The circular formation had broken up, leaving only one of the craft flying on a steady course. The rest were weaving about it like fighter aircraft attacking a bomber. “I’d give five years of my life to know how they manoeuvre like that, in space.”
“I’d give ten to know how to get away from them,” said Lemmy.
“Photograph them, Doc,” said Jet urgently. “Get as many pictures as you can.”
“Sure,” I told him. It was a relief to have something to do.
Almost as though they had heard Jet’s order, the strange ships ceased their acrobatic gyrations and drew up in a crescent formation, the horns pointing towards us.
“This is it,” said Lemmy. “They’re closing in for the kill.”
The ships were, indeed, approaching rapidly, and we could now see that they were in every way identical with the one Mitch had entered before we took off.
“And we haven’t even got a gun,” protested Lemmy.
“Doubt if it would do much good if we had,” said Jet, “the way these things manoeuvre. All we can do is carry on as we intended. Stand by to set course.”
Two minutes later we had climbed on to our couches and switched on the motor. Pressure rapidly increased and our velocity rose from 3500 miles an hour to 5600. At that speed, our nose pointed directly to Earth, the motor was cut and the pressure ceased.
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“Earth dead centre,” said Mitch, “course correct.”
“Ships still following,” said Lemmy, “and getting closer.”
Although we had known it to be highly unlikely, I think we had all half hoped that our burst of speed might have shaken off our pursuers. Now there was nothing more we could do. We were at their mercy. Automatically we left our bunks and went round checking the dials and gauges. Everything was in good order. We could be reasonably sure of making a safe landing on Earth--if we were allowed to get that far.
“Call up Control, Lemmy,” said Jet, “tell them we’ve circled the Moon and are on course for home.”
“Hardly seems worthwhile,” said Lemmy, staring at the televiewer. The ships were gaining on us at tremendous speed.
“Call them up, Lemmy, do you hear?” shouted Jet angrily.
Without further comment, Lemmy went over to the radio panel, made his preliminary call and then switched the radio to “Receive” position. Instead of the friendly, comforting voice of Control we heard, much louder and stronger than ever before, the eerie sounds that had dogged us ever since take-off. There was no longer any doubt that the music was in some way connected with the craft now close behind us. The leading ship on the left side peeled off and approached us so fast that it filled the whole screen before sailing out of sight over our heads, causing us all to duck instinctively. Almost immediately came a second and a third and a fourth. They were either attacking us or trying to scare the daylights out of us. Suddenly Jet turned to me and said: “Do you feel anything?”
“Gravity is returning to the ship.”
“Impossible,” said Mitch.
“It is, I tell you.”
“He’s right, Mitch,” I said, “I can feel it, too.”
It was getting strong, very strong. Our speed was increasing, extremely rapidly, and by now the pressure was so great it was becoming difficult to stand up.
“Back to your couches,” shouted Jet. “Everybody get on your couches. Lie flat.”
We all made the effort, but it was hopeless. The pressure was so great it was impossible to walk. My knees gave way and I hit the floor. From where I lay I saw Mitch go down on his knees and then roll over as he tried to turn on to his back. I heard a groan from Lemmy as he went down, banging his head on the side of the control table as he fell.
All the discomforts of the take-off were on us again, only this time there was no soft couch to lie on, nothing but our thin crew suits between us and the hard metal floor. The pain was agonising. Just as I felt I could stand it no longer, the cabin roof at which I was gazing became blurred. Then I lost consciousness.
Chapter 9 - LOST IN SPACE
I awoke as from a nightmare. I had been in a torture chamber, strapped to the floor, and the ceiling had gradually descended to crush me out of existence. My body ached in every limb. I had a violent headache and a dreadful feeling of nausea. Then I came to, to find Jet bending over me. “How do you feel, Doc?” he was saying.
“Dreadful,” I told him. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you feel?”
“Same as you. Awful. But the pressure’s gone now.”
“Did you black out?” I asked him. “Yes--we all did.”
“How about Mitch and Lemmy?”
“They’re still unconscious, flat out. Do you think you can get up?”
I tried. It was difficult and rather painful, but I made it. Lemmy was lying near the control table, a nasty bump showing on his forehead and a trickle of blood down the side of his face. Mitch was not far from his bunk which he had tried to reach before the increasing pressure overtook him and pinned him to the floor.
Lemmy moaned. We went over to him. After a few moments he opened his eyes. “You all right, Lemmy?” asked Jet.
He looked up at us in a daze. “Oh,” he groaned, “leave me alone. I feel shocking.”
Mitch stirred. A cursory examination showed he was in a bad way, far worse than when we had first taken off from Earth and he had suffered so badly from space sickness. He didn’t reply to any of my questions; all he could manage was a faint noise at the back of his throat.
“Jet, give me a hand, will you?” I called.
Jet left Lemmy at once and between us we lifted the Australian on to his bunk. When we had finished it suddenly occurred to me that I should not have needed Jet’s help, for under gravity-less conditions Mitch should have weighed nothing.
“We must still be accelerating,” Jet said. “Not very much but enough to give us something like the strength of gravity we know on Earth. Come on, Doc. Let’s see if we can find out what’s happened to us. We’ll take a look outside first. See if those ships are still there.”
Jet switched on the televiewer. The screen glowed, and hundreds of bright white lines ran down the frame from top to bottom. I thought at first that it wasn’t quite in focus, but no matter how much Jet fiddled with the controls the lines remained. “It’s crazy--the tube must have gone,” he said.
“No, Jet, I don’t think it’s that.”
“Then what is it? Why don’t we get a clear picture?”
“It is a clear picture,” I told him.
“Huh?”
“Those bright streaks are points of light travelling from the top of the frame to the bottom. They’re stars.” “Stars?”
“Yes, Jet. Don’t you see? The ship is spinning, turning head over heels, and those lines are the stars flashing by as we turn. That’s why we can still feel a gravitational pull. It’s not gravity at all, really--it’s centrifugal force.”
Jet gasped. “You’re right, Doc. But what set us spinning?”
“I don’t know, but we’ve got to steady her somehow--get her back on an even keel.”
Jet went over to the engineering control panel and switched in the gyro. Two hours later our gyrations had ceased and once more the stars appeared on the screen as pin-points of light. We rotated the camera, hoping it would enable us to get our bearings.
“Let’s look at the Moon first,” said Jet, “and see exactly where that is.”
In a slow sweep we searched the port side, but she wasn’t there. Then we searched the starboard side and still couldn’t find her. We explored the region in the stern of the ship and we explored forward, but not a sign of the Moon could we see.
“This is ridiculous,” said Jet. “It must be out there somewhere.”
“It should be,” I told him, “but it’s not. And come to that neither is the Earth nor the Sun.” “What?” exclaimed Jet.
“Well,” I asked him, hoping my voice was steady, “did you see them just now?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said slowly.
We searched the void again but the Earth and her satellite, not to mention the Sun, had vanished from the heavens. We rotated the camera a third and fourth time, but all we saw were stars, millions and millions of stars.
Meanwhile Lemmy had got up and was trying to contact Control, but not a thing could be picked up on the receiver; no music, no speech, no sound of any kind. “It’s like every transmitter back on Earth has packed in,” said Lemmy. “I can’t raise a sausage--nothing--not on any band.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jet. “Keep trying.”
“Well,” said Lemmy wearily, “if you say so.”
For my part I had just completed the fifth full rotation of the televiewer camera with still no sign of Earth, Sun or Moon.
“But this is fantastic,” said Jet. “We couldn’t possibly miss objects their size. The Moon’s image alone should more than fill the whole screen. We can’t be that far away from it.”
“We’ve got to face it, Jet,” I told him. “They’re not there, or, if they are, we can’t pick them up.”
“Something must be wrong with the televiewer,” he said decisively.
“Then why do we see the stars?” I asked him.
“The only other explanation,” he said, after a few seconds’ deliberation, “is that
we’re off course.”
Off course would be putting it mildly. We would have to be thousands and thousands of miles off course for this to happen. So far off course that the Moon, the Sun and the Earth, if they were there at all, would appear no larger than dots on our screen. Jet would not trust the televiewer. He was still convinced that something was wrong either with it or the camera. I prayed that he might be right.
“The only way to prove it,” he said, “is to go outside and look. Are you willing to come with me, Doc?” I was. We put on our suits. Lemmy left the radio to operate the airlock and five minutes later Jet and I had passed through the main door and were working our way along the hull. We anchored our safety lines to the rings near the door and walked up to the ship’s nose.
It was my first experience outside while the ship was in actual flight and, for a moment, the grandeur of it drove all other considerations out of my head. We were completely surrounded by a black void. Millions upon millions of fiery spots of coloured light dotted the sky in every direction. But we could see no sign of the Sun, the Earth or the Moon. We comforted each other with the thought that perhaps we were on the wrong side of the ship and that if we went ‘down under’, as Lemmy described it, we would see what we were looking for from there. We went, but with the same result; nothing but stars. There was no doubt about it, somehow we had been knocked completely out of the solar system and were now travelling through the void of space, heaven knew where or in what direction.
“I can’t believe it,” said Jet in a hushed voice. “It’s too incredible to grasp. Let’s get back in the ship, Doc,” he said brusquely. “The whole thing must be an hallucination. Either that or I’m having a bad dream.”
“If you are,” I told him, “I’m sharing it with you. No, Jet, I’m afraid we’re not dreaming, not by a long sight. We returned to the cabin to find that Mitch had now regained consciousness but was still feeling very ‘crook’ as he described it. We gathered round his bunk to break the news to him and to Lemmy.
“And that’s the position, gentlemen,” Jet told them a few minutes later. “There’s no sign of the Moon, the Sun, the Earth, Mars or any of the other planets. In fact, there’s no sign of the solar system at all.”
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