Destination Moon

by Robert A. Heinlein

  The truck was almost at the gate. Barnes' forefinger stabbed the firing button.

  A whine of great pumps was blanked out by a roar they could feel in their bones. The Luna shivered.

  In the TV screen a flower of white light burst from the tail of the ship, billowed up, blanketing the headlights, the buildings, the lower half of the ship.

  Barnes jerked his finger back. The noise died out; the cloud changed from incandescent to opaque. In the silence Styles' voice came over the speaker. "Great -- Day-in the Morning!"

  "Herb-can you hear me?"

  "Yes. What happened?"

  "Use the bull horn to warn them off. Tell 'em to scram; if they come closer I'll fry them."

  "I think you have."

  "Get busy." He watched the screen, his finger raised. The cloud lifted; he made out the truck.

  "Nine minutes," Bowles announced, calmly.

  Through the speaker Barnes could hear a voice on the bull horn, warning the attacking party back. A man jumped down from the truck, was followed by others.

  Barnes' finger trembled.

  They turned and ran.

  Barnes sighed. "Doc, did the test suit you?"

  "A mushy cutoff," Corley complained. "It should have been sharp."

  "Do we blast, or don't we?"

  Corley hesitated. "Well?" demanded Barnes.

  "We blast."

  Traub heaved a mournful sigh. Barnes snapped, "Power plant-shift to automatic! All hands-prepare for acceleration. Mannie, tell blockhouse, Muroc, and White Sands to stand by for count off at oh three five two."

  "Oh three five two," Traub repeated, then went on, "Ship~ calling blockhouse, Muroc, White Sands."

  "Power plant, report."

  "Automatic, all green."

  "Co-pilot?"

  "Tracking on autopilot." Bowles added, "Eight minutes."

  "Doc, is she hot as she'll take?"

  "I'm carrying the fission rate as high as I dare," Corley answered, strain in his voice. "She's on the ragged edge."

  "Keep her so. All hands, strap down."

  Corley reared up. "Jim-I forgot to pass out the drop-sick pills."

  "Stay where you are! If we get seasick, we get seasick."

  "One minute, coming up!" Bowles' voice was harsh.

  "Take it, 'Mannie!"

  "Blockhouse-Muroc-White Sands. Ready for count off!" Traub paused; the room was still.

  "Sixty! Fifty-nine-fifty-eight-fifty-seven -- "

  Barnes gripped his arm rests, tried to slow down his heart. He watched the -- seconds click off as Traub counted them. "Thirty-nine! Thirty-eight! Thirty-seven!" Traub's voice was shrill. "Thirty-one! Ha/fl"

  Barnes could hear sirens, rising and falling, out on the field. Above him in the TV screen, the Luna stood straight and proud, her head in darkness.

  "Eleven"

  "And ten"

  "And nine!"

  "And eight!" -- Barnes licked his lips and swallowed.

  "Five-four-three -- two --

  "Fire!"

  The word was lost in sound, a roar that made the test blast seem as nothing. The Luna shrugged-and climbed for the sky.

  V

  If we are to understand those men, we must reorient. Crossing the Atlantic was high adventure-when Columbus did it. So with the early spacemen. The ships they rode in were incredibly makeshift.

  They did not know what they were doing. Had they known, they would not have gone.

  Farquharson, Ibid., III: 415

  Barnes felt himself shoved back into the cushions. He gagged and fought to keep from swallowing his tongue. He felt paralyzed by body weight'of more than haifa ton; he strained to lift his chest. Worse than weight was noise, a mind-killing "white" sound from unbearable ultrasonics down to bass too low to be heard.

  The sound Dopplered down the scale, rumbled off and left them. At five effective gravities they outraced their own din in six seconds, leaving an aching quiet broken only by noise of water coursing through pumps.

  For a moment Barnes savored the silence. Then hi~ eyes caught the TV screen above him; in it was a, shrinking dot of fire. He realized that he was seeing himself, disappearing into the sky, and regretted that he had not watched the blast-away. "Mannie," he labored, to say, "switch on 'View After."

  "I can't," Traub groaned thickly. "I can't move a muscle."

  "Do it!"

  Traub managed it; the screen blurred, then formed a picture. Bowies grunted, "Great Caesar's ghost!" Barnes stared. They were high above Los Angeles; the metropolitan area was map sharp, picked out in street lights and neon. It was shrinking visibly.

  Rosy light flashed through the eastern port, followed at once by dazzling sunlight. Traub yelped, "What happened?"

  Barnes himself had been startled but he strove to control his voice and answered, "Sunrise. We're up that high." He went on, "Doc-how's the power plant?"

  "Readings normal," Corley replied in tongue-clogged tones. "How long -- to go?"

  Barnes looked at his board. "More than three minutes."

  Corley did not answer, three minutes seemed too long to bear. Presently Traub said, "Look at the sky!" Corley forced his head over and looked. Despite harsh sunlight the sky was black and spangled with stars.

  At three minutes and fifty seconds the jets cut off. Like the first time, the cutoff was mushy, slow. The terrible weight left them gradually. But it left them completely. Rocket and crew were all in a free orbit "falling" upward toward the Moon. Relative to each other and to ship they had no weight.

  Barnes felt that retching, frightening "falling elevator" feeling characteristic of no weight, but, expecting it, he steeled himself. "Power, plant," he snapped, "report!"

  "Power plant okay," Corley replied weakly. "Notice the cutoff?"

  "Later," decided Barnes. "Co-pilot, my track seems high."

  "My display tracks on," wheezed Bowles, " -- or a hair high."

  "Mannie!"

  No answer. Barnes repeated, "Mannie? Answer, man-are you all right?"

  Traub's voice was weak. "I think I'm dying. This thing is falling-oh, God, make it stop!"

  "Snap out of it!"

  "Are we going to crash?"

  "No, no! We're all right."

  "All right,' the man says,'~ Traub muttered, then added, "I don't care if we do."

  Barnes called out, "Doc, get those pills. Mannie needs one bad." He stopped to control a retch. "I could use one myself."

  "Me, too," agreed Bowles. "I haven't been this seasick since I was -- " He caught himself, then went on. " -- since I was a midshipman."

  Coriey loosened his straps and pulled himself out from his couch. Weightless, he floated free and turned slowly over, like a diver in slow motion. Traub turned his face away and groaned. --

  "Stop it, Mannie," ordered Barnes. "Try to raise White Sands. I want a series of time-altitude readings."

  "I can't-I'm sick."

  "Do it!"

  Corley floated near a stanchion, grabbed it, and pulled himself to a cupboard. He located the pill bottle and hastily gulped a pill. He then moved to Traub's couch, pulling himself along. "Here, Traub-take this. You'll feel better."

  "What is it?"

  "Some stuff called Dramamine. It's for seasickness."

  Traub put a pill in his mouth. "I can't swallow."

  "Better try." Traub got it down, clamped his jaw to keep it down. Corley pulled himself to Barnes. "Need one, Jim?"

  Barnes started to answer, turned his head away, and threw up in his handkerchief. Tears streaming from his eyes, he accepted the pill. Bowles called out, "Doc -- hurry up!" His voice cut off; presently he added, "Too late."

  "Sorry." Corley moved over to Bowles. "Criminy, you're a mess!"

  "Gimme that pill and no comments."

  Traub was saying in a steadier voice, "Spaceship Luna, calling White Sands. Come in White Sands."

  At last an answer came back, "White Sands to Spaceship-go ahead."

  "Give us a series of radar checks
, time, distance, and bearing."

  A new voice cut in, "White Sands to Spaceship-we have been tracking you, but the figures are not reasonable. What is your destination?"

  Traub glanced at Barnes, then answered, "Luna, to White Sands-destination: Moon."

  "Repeat? Repeat?"

  "Our destination is the Moon!".

  There was a silence. The same voice replied, "Destination: Moon' -- Good luck, Spaceship .Luna!"

  Bowles spoke up suddenly. "Hey! Come look!" He had unstrapped and was floating by the sunward port.

  "Later," Barnes answered. "I need this tracking report first."

  "Well, come look until they call back. This is once in a lifetime."

  Corley joined Bowles. Barnes hesitated; he wanted very badly to see, but he was ashamed to leave Traub working. "Wait," he called out. "I'll turn ship and we can all see."

  Mounted at the centerline of the ship was a flywheel. Barnes studied his orientation readings, then clutched the ship to the flywheel. Slowly the ship turned, without affecting its motion along its course. "How's that?"

  "Wrong way!"

  "Sorry." Barnes tried again; the stars marched past in the opposite direction; Earth swung into view. He caught sight of it and almost forgot to check the swing.

  Power had cut off a trifle more than eight hundred miles up. The Luna had gone free at seven miles per second; in the last few minutes they had been steadily coasting upwards and were now three thousand miles above Southern California. Below-opposite them, from their viewpoint-was darkness. The seaboard cities stretched across the port likeChristmas lights. East of them, sunrise cut across the Grand Canyon and shone on Lake Mead. Further east the prairies were in daylight, dun and green 'broken by blinding cloud. The plains dropped away into curved skyline.

  So fast were they rising that the picture was moving, shrinking, and the globe drew into itself as a ball. Barnes watched from across the compartment. "Can you see all right, Mannie?" he asked. --

  "Yeah,", answered Traub. "Yeah," he repeated softly~ "Say, that's real, isn't it?"

  Barnes said, "Hey, Red, Doc-heads down. You're not transparent."

  Traub looked at Barnes. "Go ahead, skipper."

  "No, I'll stick with you."

  "Don't be a chump. I'll look later."

  "Well -- " Barnes grinned suddenly. "Thanks, Mannie." He gave a shove and moved across to the port.

  Mannie continued to stare. Later the radio claimed his attention. "White Sands, calling Spaceship-ready with radar report."

  The first reports, plus a further series continued as long as White Sands and Muroc were able to track them, confirmed Barnes' suspicion. They were tracking "high," ahead of their predicted positions and at speeds greater than those called for by Hastings' finicky calculations. The difference was small; on the autopilot displays it was hardly the thickness of a line between the calculated path and the true path.

  But the difference would increase.

  "Escape speeds" for rockets are very critical Hastings had calculated the classical hundred-hour orbit and the Luna had been aimedjo reach the place where the Moon would be four days later. But initial speed is critical. A difference of less than one percent in ship speed at cutoff can halve-or double-the transit time from Earth to Moon. The Luna was running -- very slightly ahead of schedule-but when it reached the orbit of the Moon, the Moon would not be there.

  Doctor Corley tugged at his thinning hair. "Sure, the cutoff was mushy, but I-was expecting it and I noted the mass readings. It's not enough to account for the boost. Here-take a look."

  Corley was hunched at the log desk, a little shelf built wto the space between the acceleration bunks. He was strapped to a stool fixed to the deck in front of it. Barnes floated at his shoulder; he took the calculation and scanned it. "I don't follow you," Barnes said presently; "your expended mass is considerably higher than Hastings calculated."

  "You're looking at the wrong figure," Corley pointed out. "You forgot the mass of water you used up in that -- test. Subtract that from the total mass expended to get the effective figure for blast off-this figure here. Then you apply that -- " Corley hesitated, his expression changed from annoyance to dismay. "Oh, my God!"

  -- -- "Huh? What is it, Doc? Found the mistake?"

  "Oh, how could I be so stupid!" Corley started frenzied figuring.

  "What have you found?" Corley did not answer; Barnes grabbed his arm. "What's up?"

  "Huh? Don't bother me."

  "I'll bother you with a baseball bat. What have you found?"

  "Eh? Look, Jim, what's the final speed -- of a rocket, ideal case?"

  "What is this? A quiz show? Jet speed times the logarithm of the mass ratio. Pay me."

  "And you changed the mass ratio! No wonder we're running 'high."

  "Me?"

  "We both did-my fault as much as yours. Listen; you spilled a mass of water in scaring off that truckload of thugs-but Hastings' figures were based on us lifting that particular mass all the way to the Moon. The ship should have grossed almost exactly two hundred fifty tons at takeoff; she was shy what you had used-so we're going too fast."

  "Huh? I wasted reaction mass, so we're going too fast? That doesn't make sense." Barnes hooked a foot into the legs of the stool to anchor himself, and did a rough run-through of the problem with slide rule and logarithm table. "Well, boil me in a bucket!" He added humbly, "Doc, I shouldn't have asked to be skipper. idon't know enough."

  Corley's worried features softened. "Don't feel that way, Jim. Nobody knows enough-yet. God knows I've put in enough time on theory, but I went ahead and urged you to make the blunder."

  "Doe, how important is this? The error is less than one percent. I'd guess that we would reach the Moon about an hour early."

  "And roughly you'd be wrong. Initial speed is critical, Jim; you know that!"

  "How critical? When do we reach the Moon?"

  Corley looked glumly at the pitiful tools he had with him-a twenty-inch log-log slide rule, seven place tables, a Nautical Almanac, and an office-type calculator which bore the relation to a "giant brain" that a firecracker does to an A-bomb. "I don't know. I'll have to put it up to Hastings." He threw his pencil at the desk top; it bounced off and floated away. "The question is: do we get there at'all?"

  "Oh, it can't be that bad!"

  "It is that bad."

  From across the compartment Bowles called out, "Come and get it-or I throw it to the pigs!"

  But food had to wait while Corley composed a message to Hastings. It was starkly simple: OFF TRAJECTORY. USE DATA WHITE SANDS MUROC AND COMPUTE CORRECTION VECTOR. PLEASE USE UTMOST HASTE-CORLEY.

  After sending it Traub announced that he wasn't -- hungry and didn't guess he would eat.

  Bowles left the "galley" (one lonely hot plate) and moved to Traub's couch. Traub had strapped himself into it to have stability while he handled his radio controls. "Snap out of it, man," Bowles advised. "Must eat, you know."

  Traub looked gray. "Thanks, Admiral, but I couldn't."

  "So you don't like my cooking? By the way, my friends call me 'Red.'"

  "Thanks, uh-Red. No, I'm just not hungry."

  Bowles brought his head closer and spoke in low tones. "Don't let it get you, Mannie. I've been in worse jams and come out alive. Quit worrying."

  "I'm not worrying."

  BOwles chuckled. "Don't be ashamed of it, son. We all get upset, first time under fire. Come eat."

  "I can't eat. And I've been under fire."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really! I've got two Purple Hearts to prove it. Admiral, leave me alone, please. My stomach is awful -- uneasy."

  Bowles said, "I beg your pardon, Mannie." He added, "Maybe you need another seasick pilL"

  "Could be."

  "I'll fetch one." Bowles did so, then returned again shortly with a transparent sack filled with milk-to be exact,' a flexible plastic nursing cell, complete with nipple. "Sweet milk, Mannie. Maybe it'll comfort your stomach."


  Traub looked at it curiously. "With this should go a diaper and a rattle," he announced. "Thanks, uh -- Red."

  "Not at all, Mannie. If that stays down, I'll fix you a sandwich." He turned in the air and rejoined the others.

  VI

  The Luna plunged on; Earth dropped away; radio signals grew weaker-and still no word from Hastings. Corley spent the time trying endlessly and tediously to anticipate the answer he expected from Hastings, using the tools be had. Traub stood guard at the radio. Barnes and Bowles spent a lengthy time staring out the ports-back at the shrinking, cloud-striped Earth, forward at the growing gibbous Moon'and brilliant steady stars-until Bowles fell asleep in mid-sentence, a softly snoring free balloon.

  Barnes nudged him gently toward his couch and there strapped him loosely, to keep him from cluttering up the cramped cabin. He eyed 'his own couch longingly, then turned to Traub instead.

  "Out of there, Mannie," he ordered. "I'll relieve you while you catch some shut-eye."

  "Me? Oh, that's all right, Skipper. You get some sleep yourself and I'll take a rain check."

  Barnes hesitated. "Sure you don't want to be relieved?"

  "Not a bit. I feel -- " He broke off and added, "Just aminute," and turned to his controls. He was on earphones now, rather than speaker. He settled them in place and said sharply, "Go ahead, Earth."

  Presently Traub turned to Barnes: "Chicago Tribune -- they want an exclusive story from you."

  "No, I'm going to sleep."

  Traub reported Barnes' answer, then turned baCk. "How about the Admiral or Doctor Corley?"

  "The co-pilot is asleep and Doctor Corley is not to be disturbed."

  "Mr. Barnes?" Traub's manner was diffident. "Do you mind if they get one from mer'

  Barnes chuckled. "Not at all. But stick them plenty." As Barnes closed his eyes he could hear Traub dickering with some faceless negotiator. He wondered if Traub would ever get to spend the fee? What was a man like Traub doing up here anyhow, in a ship headed nowhere inahellofahurry? --

  For that matter, why was Jim Barnes here?

  - After his -- interview, Traub continued guarding the radio. Signals grew fainter and presently reduced to garble. The room was quiet, save for the soft murmur of the air replenisher. -- --