The Second Fredric Brown Megapack: 27 Classic Science Fiction Stories

by Fredric Brown

  “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,” Granham 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 air-tight and heat-proof?”

  “Air-tight once you paint the seams 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.”

  * * * *

  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 be 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 dis-cover 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.

  Granham 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 bit 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 spacesuit 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 it with 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 till 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.

  He started toward it, running with the gliding motion, almost like skating, that had been found to be easier than walking in the light gravitational pull of the Moon. Spacesuit, oxygen tank and all, his total weight was about forty-five pounds. Running a mile was less exertion than a 100-yard dash on Earth.

  He was more than glad to see the door of the Russian rocket open when he was about three-quarters of the way to it. He’d have had a tough decision to make if it had still been closed when he got there. Not knowing whether Anna was sealed in her spacesuit or not inside the rocket, he wouldn’t have dared open the door himself. And, in case she was seriously injured, he wouldn’t have dared not to.

  She was out of the rocket, though, by the time he reached her. Her face, through the transpariplast helmet, looked pale, but she managed to smile at him.

  He turned on the short-range radio of his set and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “A bit weak. The landing knocked me out, but I guess there are no bones broken. Where shall we—set up housekeeping?”

  “Near my rocket, I think. It’s closer to the middle of where the supply rockets landed, so we won’t have to move things so far. I’ll get started right away. You stay here and rest until you’re feeling better. Know how to navigate in this gravity?”

  “I was told how. I haven’t had a chance to try yet. I’ll probably fall flat on my face a few times.”

  “It won’t hurt you. When you start, take your time till you get the knack of it. I’ll begin with this nearest supply rocket; you can watch how I navigate.”

  It was about a hundred yards back the way he’d come.

  The supply rockets were at least a yard in outside diameter, and were so constructed that the nose and the tail, which contained the rocket mechanism, were easily detachable, leaving the middle section containing the payload, about the size of an oil drum and easily rolled. Each weighed fifty pounds, Moon weight.

  He saw Anna starting to work by the time he was dismantling the second supply rocket. She was awkward at first, and did lose her balance several times, but mastered the knack quickly. Once she had it, she moved more gracefully and easily than Carmody. Within an hour they had payload sections of a dozen rockets lined up near Carmody’s rocket.

  Eight of them were American rockets and from the numbers on them, Carmody knew he had all sections needed to assemble the shelter.

  “We’d better set it up,” he told her. “After that’s done, we can take things easier. We can rest before we gather in the other loot. Even have a drink to celebrate.”

  The Sun was well up over the ringwall of Hell Crater by then and it was getting hot enough to be uncomfortable, even in an insulated spacesuit. Within hours, Carmody knew, it would be so hot that neither of them would be able to stay out of the shelter for much longer than one-hour intervals, but that would be time enough for them to gather in the still uncollected supply rockets.

  Back in the supply depot on Earth, Carmody had assembled a duplicate of the prefab shelter in not much more than an hour. It was tougher going here, because of the awkwardness of working in the thickly insulated gloves that were part of the spacesuits. With Anna helping, it took almost two hours.

  He gave her the sealing preparation and a special tool for applying it. While she caulked the seams to make the shelter air-tight, he began to carry supplies, including oxygen tanks, into the shelter. A little of everything; there was no point in crowding themselves by taking inside more of anything than they’d need for a day or so at a time.

  He got and set up the cooling unit that would keep the inside of the shelter at a comfortable temperature, despite the broiling Sun. He set up the air-conditioner unit that would release oxygen at a specified rate and would absorb carbon dioxide, ready to start as soon as the caulking was done and the airlock closed. It would build up an atmosphere rapidly once he could turn it on. Then they could get out of the uncomfortable spacesuits.

  He went outside to see how Anna was coming with her task and found her working on the last seam.

  “Atta baby,” he told her.

  He grinned to himself at the thought that he really should carry his bride over the threshold—but that would be rather difficult when the threshold was an airlock that you had to crawl through on your hands and knees. The shelter itself was dome-shaped and looked almost exactly like a metal igloo, even to the projecting airlock, which was a low, semicircular entrance.

  He remembered that he’d forgotten the whisky and walked over to one of the supply rocket sections to get a bottle of it. He came back with it, shielding the bottle with his body from the direct rays of the Sun, so it wouldn’t boil.

  He happened to look up.

  It was a mistake.

  * * * *

  “It’s incredible,” Granham snapped.

  Carmody glared at him. “Of course it is. But it happened. It’s true. Get a lie detector if you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ll do that little thing,” Granham said grimly. “One’s on its way here now; I’ll have it in a few minutes. I want to try you with it before the President—and others who are going to talk to you—get a chance to do it. I’m supposed to fly you to Washington right away, but I’m waiting till I can use that lie detector first.”

  “Good,” Carmody said. “Use it and be damned. I’m telling you the truth.” Granham ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. He said, “I guess I believe you at that, Carmody. It’s just—too big, too important a thing to take any one person’s word about, even any two people’s words, assuming that Anna Borisovna—Anna Carmody, I mean—tells the same story. We’ve got word that she’s landed safely, too, and is reporting.”

  “She’ll tell the same story. It’s what happened to us.”

  “Are you sure, Carmody, that they were extra-terrestrials? That they weren’t—well, Russians? Couldn’t they have been?”

  “Sure, they could have been Russians. That is, if there are Russians seven feet tall and so thin they’d weigh about fifty pounds on Earth, and with yellow skins. I don’t mean yellow like Orientals; I mean bright yellow. And with four arms apiece and eyes with no pupils and no lids. Also if Russia
ns have a spaceship that doesn’t use jets—and don’t ask me what its source of power was; I don’t know.”

  “And they held you captive, both of you, for a full thirteen days, in separate cells? You didn’t even—”

  “I didn’t even,” Carmody said grimly and bitterly. “And if we hadn’t been able to escape when we did, it would have been too late. The Sun was low on the horizon—it was almost Moon night—when we got to our rockets. We had to rush like the devil to get them fueled and up on their tail fins in time for us to take off.”

  There was a knock on Granham’s door that turned out to be a technician with the lie detector—one of the very portable and very dependable Nally jobs that had become the standard army machine in 1958.

  The technician rigged it quickly and watched the dials while Granham asked a few questions, very guarded ones so the technician wouldn’t get the picture. Then Granham looked at the technician inquiringly.

  “On the beam,” the technician told him. “Not a flicker.”

  “He couldn’t fool the machine?”

  “This detector?” the technician asked, patting it. “It’d take neurosurgery or post-hypnotic suggestion like there never was to beat this baby. We even catch psychopathic liars with it.”

  “Come on,” Granham said to Carmody. “We’re on our way to Washington and the plane’s ready. Sorry for doubting you, Carmody, but I had to be sure—and report to the President that I am sure.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Carmody told him. “It’s hard for me to believe, and I was there.”

  The plane that had brought Carmody from Washington to Suffolk Field had been a hot ship. The one that took him back—with Granham jockeying it—was almost incandescent. It cracked the sonic barrier and went on from there.

  They landed twenty minutes after they took off. A helicopter was waiting for them at the airport and got them to the White House in another ten minutes.

  And in two minutes more they were in the main conference room, with President Saunderson and half a dozen others gathered there. The Eastern Alliance ambassador was there, too.