The Collection

by Fredric Brown

"And you want me to pilot them there?"

  "Not exactly, Ray. A little more than that-"

  Carmody forgot that the President was there. He said, "Good God, you mean you want me to- Then junior wasn't crazy, after all!"

  Shamefacedly, then, he had to explain about the extra-curricular question he'd casually asked junior and the answer he'd got to it.

  Reeber laughed. "Guess we'll overlook your violation of Rule 17 this time, Ray. That is, if you accept the mission. Now here's the-"

  "Wait," Carmody said. "I still want to know something. How did Junior know I was going to be picked out? And for that matter, why am I?"

  "Junior was asked for the qualifications he'd recommend for the-ah-bridegroom. He recommended a rocket pilot who had already made the trip successfully, even though he was a year or two over the technical retirement age of twenty-five. He recommended that loyalty be considered as an important factor, and that the holding of a governmental position of great trust would answer that. He further recommended that the man be single."

  "Why single? Look, there are four other pilots who've made that trip, and they're all loyal, regardless of what job they're holding now. I know them all personally. And all of them are married except me. 'Why not send a man who's already got a ball and chain?"

  "For the simple reason, Ray, that the woman to be sent must be chosen with even more care. You know how tough a Moon landing is; only one woman in a hundred would live through it and still be able to-I mean, there's almost a negligible chance that the wife of any one of the other four pilots would be the best qualified woman who could possibly be found."

  "Hmmm. Well, I suppose Junior's got something there. Anyway, I see now how he knew I'd be chosen. Those qualifications fit me exactly. But listen, do I have to stay married to whatever female is Amazonian enough to make the trip? There's a limit somewhere, isn't there?"

  "Of course. You will be legally married before your departure, but upon your return a divorce will be granted without question if both-or either one-of you wish. The offspring of the union, if any, will be cared for. Whether male or female."

  "Hey, that's right," Carmody said. "There's only an even chance of hitting the jackpot in any case."

  "Other couples will be sent. The first trip is the most difficult and most important one. After that, a base will be established. Sooner or later we'll get our answer. We'll have it if even one male child is conceived on the Moon. Not that that will help us find the station that's sending the rays, or to detect or identify the rays, but we'll know what's wrong and can narrow our inquiry. I take it that you accept?"

  Carmody sighed. "I guess so. But it seems a long way to go for-Say, who's the lucky girl?"

  Reeber cleared his throat. "I think you'd better explain his part to him, Mr. President."

  President Saunderson smiled as Carmody looked toward him. He said, "There is a more important reason, which Mr. Reebcr skipped, why we could not choose a man who was already married, Captain. This is being done on an international basis, for very important diplomatic reasons. The experiment is for the benefit of humanity, not any nation or ideology. Your wife will be a Russian."

  "A Commie? You're kidding me, Mr. President."

  "I am not. Her name is Anna Borisovna. I have not met her, but I am informed that she is a very attractive girl. Her qualifications are quite similar to yours, except, of course, that she has not been to the Moon. No woman has. But she has been a pilot of experimental rockets on short-range flights. And she is a cybernetics technician working on the big machine at Moscow. She is twenty-four. And not, incidentally, an Amazon. As you know, rocket pilots aren't chosen for bulk. There is an added advantage in her being chosen. She speaks English."

  "You mean I've got to talk to her, too?"

  Carmody caught the look Reeber flashed at him and he winced.

  The President continued: "You will be married to her tomorrow by a beam-televised ceremony. You blast off, both of you, tomorrow night-at different times, of course, since one of you will leave from here, the other from Russia. You will meet on the Moon."

  "It's a large place, Mr. President."

  "That is taken care of. Major Granham-you know him, I believe?" Carmody nodded. "He will supervise your takeoff and the sending of the supply rockets. You will fly tonight-a plane has been prepared for you-from the airport here to Suffolk Rocket Field. Major Granham will brief you and give you full instructions. Can you be at the airport by seven-thirty?"

  Carmody thought and then nodded. It was five-thirty now and there'd be a lot of things for him to do and arrange in two hours, but he could make it if he tried. And hadn't Junior told him he was going to be busy this evening?

  "Only one thing more;" President Saunderson said. "This is strictly confidential, until and unless the mission is successful. We don't want to raise hopes, either here or in the Eastern alliance, and then have them smashed." He smiled. "And if you and your wife have any quarrels on the Moon, we don't want them to lead to international repercussions. So please-try to get along." He held out his hand. "That's all, except thanks."

  Carmody made the airport in time and the plane was waiting for him, complete with pilot. He had figured that he would have to fly it himself, but he realized that it was better this way; he could get a bit of rest before they reached Suffolk Field.

  He got a little, but not much. The plane was a hot ship that got him there in less than an hour. A liaison officer was waiting for him and took him immediately to Major Granham's office.

  Granham got down to brass tacks almost before Carmody could seat himself in the offered chair.

  He said, "Here's the picture. Since you got out of the service, we've tremendously increased the accuracy of our rockets, manned or otherwise. They're so accurate that, with proper care, we can hit within a mile of any spot on the Moon that we aim at. We're picking Hell Crater-it's a small one, but we'll put you right in the middle of it. You won't have to worry about steering; you'll hit within a mile of the center without having to use your braking rockets for anything except braking."

  "Hell Crater?" Carmody said. "There isn't any."

  "Our Moon maps have forty-two thousand named craters. Do you know them all? This one, incidentally, was named after a Father Maximilian Hell, S. J., who was once director of the Vienna Observatory in old Austria."

  Carmody grinned. "Now you're spoiling it. How come it was picked as a honeymoon spot, though? Just because of the name?"

  "No. One of the three successful flights the Russians made happened to land and take off there. They found the footing better than anywhere else either of us has landed. Almost no dust; you won't have to slog through knee-deep pumice when you're gathering the supply rockets. Probably a more recently formed crater than any of the others we've happened to land in or explore."

  "Fair enough. About the rocket I go in-what's the payload besides myself?"

  "Not a thing but the food, water and oxygen you'll need en route, and your spacesuit. Not even fuel for your return, although you'll return in the same rocket you go in. Everything else, including return fuel, will be there waiting for you; it's on the way now. We fired ten supply rockets last night. Since you take off tomorrow night, they'll get there forty-eight hours before you do. So-"

  "Wait a minute," Carmody said. "On my first trip I carried fifty pounds payload besides my return fuel. Is this a smaller type of rocket?"

  "Yes, and a much better one. Not a step-rocket like you used before. Better fuel and more of it; you can accelerate longer and at fewer gravities, and you'll get there quicker. Forty-four hours as against almost four days before. Last time you took four and half Gs for seven minutes. This time you'll get by with three Gs and have twelve minutes' acceleration before you reach Brennschlus-cut loose from Earth's gravitation. Your first trip, you had to carry return fuel and a little payload because we didn't have the accuracy to shoot a supply rocket after you-or before you-and be sure it'd land within twenty miles. All clear? After we're through talkin
g here I'll take you to the supply depot, show you the type of supply rocket we're using and how to open and unload it. I'll give you an inventory of the contents of each of the twelve of them we sent."

  "And what if all of them don't get there?"

  "At least eleven of them will. And everything's duplicated; if any one rocket goes astray, you'Il still have everything you need-for two people. And the Russians are firing an equal number of supply rockets, so you'll have a double factor of safety." He grinned. "If none of our rockets get there, you'll have to eat borsht and drink vodka, maybe, but you won't starve."

  "Are you kidding about the vodka?"

  "Maybe not. We're including a case of Scotch, transferred to lightweight containers, of course. We figure it might be just the icebreaker you'll need for a happy honeymoon."

  Carmody grunted.

  "So maybe," Granharn said, the Russians'll figure the same way and send along some vodka. And the rocket fuels for your return, by the way, are not identical, but they're interchangeable. Each side is sending enough for the return of two rockets. If our fuel doesn't get there, you divvy with her, and vice versa."

  "Fair enough. What else?"

  "Your arrival will be just after dawn-Lunar time. There'll be a few hours when the temperature is somewhere between horribly cold and broiling hot. You'd better take advantage of them to get the bulk of your work done. Gathering supplies from the rockets and putting up the prefab shelter that's in them, in sections. We've got a duplicate of it in the supply depot and I want you to practice assembling it."

  "Good idea. It's airtight and heatproof?"

  "Airtight once you paint the scams with a special preparation that's included. And, yes, the insulation is excellent. Has a very ingenious little airlock on it, too. You won't have to waste oxygen getting in and out."

  Carmody nodded. "Length of stay?" he asked.

  "Twelve days. Earth days, of course. That'll give you plenty of time to get off before the Lunar night."

  Granham chuckled. "Want instructions to cover those twelve days? No? Well, come on around to the depot then. I'll introduce you to your ship and show you the supply rockets and the shelter."

  CHAPTER THREE:

  REMOTELY MARRIED

  It turned out to be a busy evening, all right. Carmody didn't get to bed until nearly morning, his head so swimming with facts and figures that he'd forgotten it was his wedding day. Granham let him sleep until nine, then sent an orderly to wake him and to state that the ceremony had been set for ten o'clock and that he'd better hurry.

  Carmody couldn't remember what "the ceremony" was for a moment, then he shuddered and hurried.

  A Justice of the Peace was waiting for him there and technicians were working on a screen and projector. Granham said, "The Russians agreed that the ceremony could be performed at this end, provided we made it a civil ceremony. That's all right by you, isn't it?"

  "It's lovely," Carmody told him. "Let's get on with it. Or don't we have to? As far as I'm concerned-"

  "You know what the reaction of a lot of people would he when they learn about it, if it wasn't legal," Granham said. "So quit crabbing. Stand right there."

  Carmody stood right there. A fuzzy picture on the beam-television screen was becoming clearer. And prettier. President Saunderson had not exaggerated when he'd said that Anna Borisovna was attractive and that she was definitely not an Amazon. She was small, dark, slender and very definitely attractive and not an Amazon.

  Carmody felt glad that nobody had corned it up by putting her in a wedding costume. She wore the neat uniform of a technician, and she filled it admirably and curved it at the right places. Her eyes were big and dark and they were serious until she smiled at him. Only then did he realize that the connection was two-way and that she was seeing him.

  Granham was standing beside him. He said, "Miss Borisovna, Captain Carmody."

  Carmody said, inanely, "Pleased to meet you," and then redeemed it with a grin.

  "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was musical and only faintly accented. “It is a pleasure."

  Carmody began to think it would be, if they could just keep from arguing politics.

  The Justice of the Peace stepped forward into range of the projector. "Are we ready?" he asked.

  "A second," Carmody said. "It seems to me we've skipped a customary preliminary. Miss Borisovna, will you marry me?"

  "Yes. And you may call me Anna."

  She even has a sense of humor, Carmody thought, astonished. Somehow, he hadn't thought it possible for a Commie to have a sense of humor. He'd pictured them as all being dead serious about their ridiculous ideology and about everything else.

  He smiled at her and said, "All right, Anna. And you may call me Ray. Are you ready?"

  When she nodded, he stepped to one side to allow the Justice of the Peace to share the screen with him. The ceremony was brief and businesslike.

  He couldn't, of course, kiss the bride or even shake hands with her. But just before they shut off the projector, he managed to grin at her and say, "See you in Hell, Anna."

  And he'd begun to feel certain that it wouldn't be that at all, really.

  He had a busy afternoon going over every detail of operation of the new type rocket, until he knew it inside and out better than he did himself. He even found himself being briefed on details of the Russian rockets, both manned and supply types, and he was surprised (and inwardly a bit horrified) to discover to what extent the United States and Russia had been exchanging information and secrets. It couldn't all have happened in a day or so.

  "How long has this been going on?" he demanded of Granham.

  "I learned of the projected trip a month ago."

  "Why did they tell me only yesterday? Or wasn't I first choice, after all? Did somebody else back out at the last minute?"

  "You've been chosen all along. You were the only one who fitted all of the requirements that cybernetics machine dished out. But don't you remember how it was on your last trip? You weren't notified you were taking off until about thirty hours before. That's what's figured to be the optimum time-long enough to get mentally prepared and not so long you've got time to get worried."

  "But this was a volunteer deal. What if I'd turned it down?"

  "The cybernetics machine predicted that you wouldn't." Carmody swore at junior.

  Granharn said, "Besides, we could have had a hundred volunteers. Rocket cadets who've got everything you have except one round trip to the Moon already under their belts. We could have shown a picture of Anna around and had them fighting for the chance. That gal is Moon bait."

  "Careful," Carmody said, "you are speaking of my wife." He was kidding, of course, but it was funny--he really hadn't liked Granham's wisecrack.

  Zero hour was ten p.m., and at zero minus fifteen minutes he was already strapped into the webbing, waiting. There wasn't anything for him to do except stay alive. The rockets would be fired by a chronometer set for the exact fraction of a second.

  Despite its small payload, the rocket was a little roomier inside than the first one he'd gone to the Moon in, the R-24. The R-24 had been as roomy as a tight coffin. This one, the R-46, was four feet in diameter inside. He'd be able to get at least a hit of arm and leg exercise on the way and not-as the first time-arrived so cramped that it had taken him over an hour to be able to move freely.

  And this time he wouldn't have the horrible discomfort of having to wear his spacesuit, except for the helmet, en route. There's room in a four-foot cylinder to put a space-suit on, and his was in a compartment-along with the food, water and oxygen-at the front (or top) of the rocket. It would be an hour's work to struggle into it, but he wouldn't have to do it until he was several hours away from the Moon.

  Yes, this was going to be a breeze compared to the last trip. Comparative freedom of movement, forty-four hours as against ninety, only three gravities as against four and a half.

  Then sound that was beyond sound struck him, sound so loud that he heard if wit
h all of his body rather than only with his carefully plugged ears. It built up, seeming to get louder every second, and his weight built up too. He weighed twice his normal weight, then more. He felt the sickening curve as the automatic tilting mechanism turned the rocket, which had at first gone straight up, forty-five degrees. He weighed four hundred and eighty pounds and the soft webbing seemed to be hard as steel and to cut into him. Padding was' compressed rill it felt like stone. Sound and pressure went on and on interminably. Surely it had been hours instead of minutes.

  Then, at the moment of Brennschluss, free of the pull of Earth-sudden silence, complete weightlessness. He blacked out.

  But only minutes had gone by when he returned to consciousness. For a while he fought nausea and only when he was sure he had succeeded did he unbuckle himself from the webbing that had held him through the period of acceleration. Now he was coasting, weightless, at a speed that would carry him safely toward the gravitational pull of the Moon. No further firing of fuel would be necessary until he used his jets to brake his landing.

  All he had to do now was hang on, to keep from going crazy from claustrophobia during the forty hours before he'd have to start getting ready for the landing.

  It was a dull time, but it passed.

  Into spacesuit, back into the webbing, but this time with his hands free so he could manipulate the handles that controlled the braking jets.

  He made a good landing; it didn't even knock him unconscious. After only a few minutes he was able to unbuckle himself from the webbing. He sealed his spacesuit and started the oxygen, then let himself out of the rocket. It had fallen over on its side after the landing, of course; they always do. But he had the equipment and knew the technique for getting it upright again, and there wasn't any hurry about doing it.

  The supply rockets had been shot accurately, all right. Six of them, four American type and two Russian, lay within a radius of a hundred yards of his own rocket. He could see others farther away, but didn't waste time counting them. He looked for one that would be larger than the rest-the manned (or womaned) rocket from Russia. He located it finally, almost a mile away. He saw no spacesuited figure near it.