MARK TWAIN
ON THE MOON
Book 2: The Deirdre
by
Michael Schulkins
Prologue
You hold before you the second volume of an extended work describing my adventures, tribulations, and occasional successes on the Moon. The first volume, Mark Twain on the Moon Book 1: Prospectors! tells the story of how I set off to prospect for water ice and precious metals in the lonely craters and desolate mountains of the Lunar wilderness, and how an untimely death seemed the only reward that might await me there.
In case you have forgotten the particulars, Book 1 details how my future mining partner Calvin Bemis and I earned our grub stake working as "pickers", or the low men on the totem pole at Lunar Consolidated Mines. After getting chewed up and spat out by an immense strip-mining machine called Baby, we left the picking business, bought a marvelous great digging leviathan we nicknamed the Beast, a small mountain of prospecting gear and supplies, and an overpriced map directing us to a promising crater. We dubbed it Farley’s Crater in honor of the amiable swindler who had sold us the map, and when we reached it, we promptly got ourselves and the Beast trapped in a sea of Moon dust, with rapidly dwindling supplies, and little to no hope of being rescued before our air ran out.
But, as I revealed at the end of that volume, Calvin and I did not die—not quite. And the reason we didn’t—detailed in this volume—was the timely intervention of the men of the Deirdre. Their story, which became inextricably entwined with our own, is related here.
Chapter One
I was awakened by a persistent buzzing noise. Well, I thought, still three-quarters asleep, now a fly has got into the cabin. Fleas we had aplenty, but the presence of a fly was a novelty. How had it got in? There must be a hole in the screen door, or had I forgotten to shut the airlock? A fly might enjoy the Moon, while he lasted—what with the paltry gravitation, he might get by without flapping his wings but once or twice a week. This deep thinking finally brought me awake, more or less, and after a minute I roused Bemis.
"Cal,” I croaked, “what is that infernal buzzing noise? Do you think you could shut it off so I can die in peace?"
"What?" he groaned. Then all of a sudden he was shouting. "Sam! Sam, wake up. We're saved! We're saved, I tell you! That's the incoming signal indicator on the radio. Somebody heard our S.O.S. and they're calling back." He reached across to the radio controls and turned on the receiver.
The radio’s speaker crackled with static for a moment, then I heard a voice calling, "Ahoy, the digger. Ahoy in there.” Then, “Booger! I hope they aren’t dead already. Ahoy, the digger! Do you hear me?"
Bemis called back immediately. "Yes! Yes, we hear you quite clearly. Thank God you heard us. We thought we were dead for sure. We're in a large crater buried in Moon dust up to our ears. Is there any way you can help us?"
"Fear not, mate," said the voice. "I know where you’re situated. I can see you from here, or leastways what's left sticking out of the dust. You’re in the soup pretty deep a'right, but we’ll rouse you out. Should be alongside in just a few minutes.”
"What?” said Bemis. “Do you mean you're in the crater? Where are you?"
"Of course I’m in the crater, ya silly booger, else I couldn’t be talking to you, could I?” He mumbled, “Greenhorns sure enough,” then added, “You can probably see us by now. We’re off your port beam. Go and look out the window on the left side.”
As someone who had piloted a steamboat or two in my otherwise misspent youth, I felt an impulse to inform our savior that I for one knew the difference between port and starboard, but as that was slightly less urgent than being saved from certain death, I decided to let it go. There was no man on Earth, or I should say, no man in the Moon, to whom I would less wish to give offense.
We both stuck our noses against the indicated viewport and strained to see something, anything, in the sea of dust. We hadn’t the slightest idea what we were looking for, but then it didn’t matter. Anyone or anything would be welcome—Valkyries in a winged chariot, a horde of red Indians in a birchbark canoe, anything—welcomed like the prodigal son carrying a golden goose in the holy grail.
"I think I see something." Bemis pointed out the port. “Over there.”
Finally I saw what he'd found. I detected it first by the fireworks, distant as they were, then as a disturbance in, or above, the dust, in the form of two plumes rising above the surface, curving in broad low arcs that shone with an eerie greenish scintillating glow, despite the light from the waning Earth. The dust did not float in a cloud above the surface, but rose and fell in two neat, sparkling parabolas, both advancing toward us at a steady pace.
"We see you! We see you!" cried Bemis.
"Fine,” our savior replied. “I'll be coming up abeam of you in a minute. How are you fixed for air?"
"We can still breathe for the moment,” Calvin admitted, “but I fear all of our air cylinders are exhausted.”
“Very well,” he said. “I expect you’ll not expire before we can get you to the Deirdre. But you’ll need to be in your pressure gear for a short while once we get there. There be two of you, from what I can see. I’ll send a man across with two cylinders of air. And I’ll send over some water. I expect you’ll be needing that as well.”
“Yes. Thank you. That would be, uh—” Bemis looked at me.
“Splendid,” I said.
“That would be splendid,” he said.
It sounded as if our benefactor was far more ready to effect our rescue than we were to receive it. That makes sense, I suppose. No one in his right mind plans to be rescued, because no one in his right mind plans to get himself into enough trouble to need it.
As our rescuer approached, I was able to make out some features of his conveyance. Sadly, it was not a winged chariot chock-full of Valkyries, but then it was not red Indians either, so I was satisfied.
"That's the strangest-looking craft I've ever seen," Calvin said.
Indeed, the vehicle, vessel, whatever it was, was unique in my experience, and perhaps that was inevitable, as it was clearly constructed with the unique environment of Farley’s Crater in mind. I wanted to call it a boat, just to be done with it, or a traction engine, or a Fourth of July parade float (albeit one lacking bunting and the inevitable advertisement for the local haberdasher on its stern), but I found that I could not, as it had the salient characteristics of all three—something like the celebrated Sphinx of Giza, which has the body of a lion, the head of a man, and the disposition of a librarian. At the center of the thing was a steam-powered tractor, with its pilot’s seat and tiller situated behind the boiler, open to the vacuum. Behind the tractor came a sort of wheeled platform—this was the parade float part—where two men were already taking a pair of air cylinders from an aluminum rack. All this, if not exactly Company issue, was not too far out of the ordinary. It was what surrounded the tractor and the parade float that made the craft unique, and useful in Farley’s Crater. An enormous wedge of sheet aluminum, something like a cow catcher on a locomotive only larger and far more comprehensive, made up the prow of the vessel—but did not stop there, not by a long shot. The great sloping wedge continued along the sides of the craft until it had wrapped itself completely around both the tractor and the parade float, and closed up again behind them. The whole construction looked something like the hull of an ocean-going ship, only turned upside down and with the bottom torn out. That is, it looked something like that, but fortunately not much.
“Yes,” I agreed, “but it appears to be effective. If we’d thought to bring along some sheet aluminum, we might not be in this pickle." As the craft came on, the wedge-shaped prow cut through the dust as if it were water. However, it did not float upon the dust like a proper
boat but simply shoved it aside with its great cow catcher, leaving the traction engine and parade float to roll along in a dust-free cavity inside. Once it had slowed to come alongside, the rooster tails of shimmering Moon dust subsided, but a sort of wake of glowing, discommoded dust could still be seen beyond the stern.
A minute later the "dust boat,” as I’d decided to christen the thing, came abreast of us, and we put on our helmets and prepared to leave the digger, likely for the last time. As much as I’d wished, not to say yearned, lusted, maybe even prayed to be rescued, it seemed a shame to abandon the Beast. It seemed wrong to leave it there to, well, not rust exactly, as that would require the presence of air, but nevertheless to sit there up to its airlock in Moon dust, silent, idle, useless, and forlorn, like a ‘coon dog too old to hunt, or a politician too honest to graft, if there is such a thing. It seemed to me wasteful, thoughtless, callous, even cruel to leave it behind, but after all it was only a dumb piece of machinery. A piece of machinery as close to our hearts as our livers, I’ll admit, but still nothing compared to a living, breathing thing like a good ‘coon dog, or a wife. Still, I couldn’t help the way I felt at that moment, and I knew Calvin felt it as well. Nevertheless, he radioed that we were ready to go.
Before I had managed to wedge myself into the Dutch oven, however, our benefactor called back, saying, "Hold on there, ya boogers. Don't be in such a hurry to abandon ship. Are you towing anything behind that digger?"
“Well, there is a sled,” Bemis said.
“Of course you are,” said our deliverer. “That’s part ‘n’ parcel of why you’re stuck.”
"Yes," Bemis answered, "but we're going to have to leave it behind with the digger. There's no way to get it free."
"Waste not, want not, gentlemen. I expect the Deirdre can use some of the cargo you’re carrying."
"But it belongs—" Bemis started.
"Quiet, Calvin," I said. "He can have the lot for all I care. It seems a reasonable price to pay for saving our lives, don’t you think?”
Bemis nodded his head. “We tried going into the dust to save some of it,“ he said into the speaking cone, “but we weren’t too successful.”
“And it cost us a parcel of air into the bargain,” I added.
“Never mind. You just sit tight,” our deliverer said. “Leave the salvaging to us.”
I said, “I thought you wanted us to come over there to, what’s it called, the Deirdre.”
A chuckle came out of the radio speaker. “No, this ain’t the Deirdre, it’s only the dust boat. You stay where you are. There’ll be plenty enough for you to do once we get you out of the soup.”
The dust boat—I felt some satisfaction that I’d gotten its moniker right—came alongside, or within a half-dozen yards of us, and immediately a man in a pressure suit leapt from the parade float and flew across the space between us, carrying two cylinders of air, which he placed beside the hatch of the Dutch oven. It was a prodigious leap at that distance, even by the Moon’s extravagant standards, and a moment later the other man did it too, this time carrying what I correctly presumed to be a large container of water. He cranked open the outer hatch of the airlock and the first man placed the containers inside. I wasted no time in putting the airlock through its paces, and we had fresh air and water once again.
Apart from the fact that their efforts were in service of the noblest of goals, namely our salvation, it was a pleasure to watch those men operate in the Lunar environment, especially in the peculiar conditions served up by Farley’s Crater. They moved through the vacuum with the effortless grace and ruthless efficiency of a ballet dancer, a trapeze artist, or a three-card Monte entrepreneur cleaning out suckers in Central Park. Although I have rightly warned the oxygen-drunk greenhorns and starry-eyed excursionists among you against the hazards of leaping about on the Moon’s surface, a skilled practitioner can accomplish much in this line with reasonable safety, and watching those men jump easily and precisely between dust boat and digger with their arms full of containers, and in general gambol about like a pair of tomcats at a cotillion, was a convincing demonstration of their mastery of this dangerous and demanding art.
By comparison, Bemis and I would surely have found ourselves floating face down in the dust soon after attempting such feats, or worse, found ourselves lying toes up in the morgue. Any acquaintance Bemis and I had with Lunar acrobatics must necessarily come from our time served as pickers. To be sure, picking teaches one how to survive and endure in a pressure suit on the Moon’s surface, but precious little else, and amateur terpsichore is expressly forbidden by Company policy. Pressure suits, even the slatternly variety favored by the Company, cost money, don’t you know. And what’s more, decanting the remains of a picker who has turned prima ballerina and torn a hole in his suit the size of Lake Superior means paying the lucky decantor at least time and a half, if not double, and that is intolerable—so terpsichore, or any other form of low gravity acrobatics is strongly discouraged.
And there is another matter that makes it a challenge to work effectively in a pressure suit, and I think, seeing as I am in the middle of describing a daring rescue, this would be the perfect time to present it. It is a condition that for once is not the fault of the Moon’s meager gravity, but instead the work of that far more treacherous hombre, the vacuum. You see, a pressure suit, when sealed up, filled with air, and introduced to the vacuum, promptly puffs up like a valedictorian on graduation day and takes on the appearance of a collection of fat sausages strung together in the shape of a man, or if you prefer, a particularly unsightly haggis, and thereafter cooperates with its wearer much as the haggis might in similar circumstances. If it were not for the accordion-fold pleats sewn into elbow, knee, hip, and shoulder joints, the occupant of the haggis would be unable to move his bloated limbs more than a few inches in any direction. So practicing terpsichore, trapeze, or three-card Monte on the Moon not only requires precise timing and an abundance of skill at being a low-flying projectile, but requires these while encased in an unwieldy haggis anxious to burst at the seams.
As we watched, the two men began to probe the dust for the sunken sled, using of all things our old friend the picker’s “toothpick.” Once they had sounded the sled sufficiently to determine its location and overall dimensions, the dust boat was maneuvered into position behind where the sled was buried. Then, with the dust boat in its new place, one man took a large roll or bundle from a locker on the parade float. While the first man held the bundle, the other took hold of a line attached to it and leapt over the sled, or its reputed resting place, and landed back aboard the Beast. As he flew over the dust, the bundle unrolled behind him, and suddenly a strange new object, an immense flattened gray doughnut at least six feet across, lay upon the dust, and immediately began to sink.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more and said, “What in blazes do you suppose that is?” I did not expect an answer, but in this I was disappointed.
“It’s the inside of a tire,” Calvin answered, a bit too readily for my taste. “A big one too, like on the Beast. Many of your larger sorts of tire have an interior skin that can be inflated with air. Even some of the better steam buggies have them, I’m told.”
“What do they want with that?” I wondered aloud.
Fortunately, Calvin had no ready answer for this, so we stared out the rear viewport and waited for the show, whatever it might be, to begin. Were they going to dive for supplies as we had done, or try to raise the sled itself from the dusty depths? I couldn’t imagine how a doughnut, however oversized and underdone it might be, could help in this, but I was soon enlightened. One side of the doughnut, the side nearest the reputed location of the buried sled, sank rapidly, too rapidly if that is possible, into the dust. As it turned out, that side of the doughnut had lead weights attached, like the ones on a fishing line only bigger, and these sent the doughnut straight to the bottom. Each man, one on the digger and one in the dust boat, held the end of a line secured to the now sunken
doughnut. Then the dust boat, piloted by the third man, sailed around to the side opposite to where the doughnut had disappeared. And with that change completed, the orientation of the lines also changed, so that one came out of the dust on the port side, held by the man on the digger, and the other emerged to starboard, and was held by the man on the dust boat. I don’t think I comprehended it at the time, but the effect of the maneuver had been to draw the flattened doughnut under the sled. This is something like what is occasionally done in ocean-going ships when they spring a leak. A sail is passed beneath the hull to keep the water out, more or less. (This is done aboard sailing ships, of course, if it is done at all, for only they carry the canvas necessary to do it. I don’t know what ocean-going steamships do in such circumstances, but I expect they operate like riverboats: once their hulls are stove in, and the dogs and gamblers have leapt over the side, they simply sink.)
As I should have guessed, the line leading to the dust boat was actually an air hose, and a cylinder of air was soon coupled to it. Nothing seemed to happen for a minute or so, then the dust above the sled began to stir, then flow away on all sides, like the water on top of a breaching whale, and after another minute we saw shapes emerge in the dust. They were familiar shapes, for the most part, and soon we were able to recognize certain items belonging to our lost cache of supplies. Before very much longer, the sled itself became visible, perching smugly on the upper surface of the mighty doughnut, which was now fully engorged with air and inflated to half the size of a house. I believe I said before that these fellows seemed far more prepared for our rescue than we were. After witnessing this feat, I was prepared to double and redouble that bid.
We watched in fascination as the man who had hopped to the risen sled tossed item after item of what were once our supplies to the man on the dust boat. Not a single one ended up in the dust. Then, when the sled was empty, the man on the dust boat crossed back over to the digger, and the two of them escorted the sled itself onto the parade float, which was now piled high with our goods. After adding in the two low-gravity acrobats, and the sled, there seemed to be precious little space left for us.
The Deirdre Page 1