Mission to the Moon

by Lester Del Rey

  Abruptly, he noticed that they weren't near the hotel, and turned to the driver. "Hey, I want the Haute Terre!"

  "Sorry," the driver said, "Thought you knew. I've got orders to take you to see Mr. Jonas!"

  Jim shrugged. He might have known. It had been a long time since he'd seen the man, and some report was probably due. Then he frowned, as he considered it. After a trip like this, even Jonas should be willing to wait while he changed into normal Earth clothes and cleaned up. If something else had gone wrong ...

  He knew it had when he was first ushered into the man's local office. Jonas was still the perfect picture of an executive at a businessman's club, but there were deeper lines etched into his face, and his hair seemed even grayer. The voice was the same hearty one, though, as he grabbed Jim's hand.

  "Hi, Jim. I heard you got your baptism under fire and did a fine job of it. Sorry I can't let you get the rest you deserve."

  "What's up?" Jim asked.

  Jonas dropped to a seat, indicating a chair for Jim. "You're not supposed to, but I expect you know about the Combine rockets we've spotted?" He waited for Jim's nod, and then went on. "Well, it's no secret any more! I've got an advance tipoff that the Combine has announced the whole thing. They're putting up a station on the other side of the Earth from our orbit location. And it couldn't have come at a worse time. I've been negotiating for the appropriation—lobbying, you might call it. It's being studied in a House Committee, but I was hoping to get it out with a recommendation this week. And now this news!"

  "I thought your appropriation had gone through," Jim objected.

  "The preliminary one and the contract, yes," Jonas said. He grimaced. "But on a government contract, things aren't that simple. They can still cancel, or refuse to allot the money. And for the Moon trip, we still need half a billion dollars. We can't gamble on starting without it!"

  It was only an eighth of what the station had cost, or a quarter of the research on the atomic bomb. But it was still a huge figure. No private firm could provide it.

  "But I don't see how that will be affected by news of the Combine station," Jim objected. "It means that we'll have to get to the Moon! Maybe they can build another station—I thought we'd proved that diey couldn't—but they can't build another moon!"

  Jonas sighed heavily. "Hindsight is better than nothing, Jim. We know now that they can build a station, and we can't stop them. Sure, we could reach their platform with our missiles, as you proved before. We could drive them out of the skies, in theory. Then what? Would you sign an order to attack them?"

  The idea penetrated slowly. And then it was obvious to Jim, and he could have kicked himself for not seeing it before. So long as the Combine claimed their station was for scientific study, there was no excuse to stop them. They weren't overtly attacking, but anything that might be done to wreck their station would be considered an act of murder and war! If anything were done against them, the United States would be branded as an aggressor—by most of the world.

  Until the Combine used their station for warlike purposes, nothing could be done against them. And once they did use it for such purposes, it would be too late.

  "We could force it down, physically," Jonas explained. "But morally and politically, we can't. And that's going to make the resentment against our station flare up again. People are going to believe we started it all with the first one. It's like the atom bomb —people were so scared that they would have dropped the whole thing if they could. And in that kind of atmosphere you can't expect to get funds out of Congress. When the voters hate everything about space, what can their representatives do?"

  "But if we get to the Moon—" Jim started to repeat.

  Jonas shook his head. "The Moon is 239,000 miles away. Try to make people see that it can protect us when a station a thousand miles up cannot. They were sold on the space station as a way to end war. Now they will see it as the most dangerous possible weapon. They'll want no part of space!"

  He stared at Jim bitterly. Then he settled back into the chair to gaze out of the window toward the rocket field. "Maybe we picked the wrong job, Jim. I could have stuck to our regular industrial divisions. You could probably have done all right as a mechanic. Maybe we were fools."

  "As long as we got the station up, I won t think so, sir," Jim told him.

  Jonas snorted. "Suppose it doesn't stay up? Having two stations sounds bad—but think about having none. And it's possible. In a week there's going to be a yell going up to outlaw all stations and tear them down! Maybe if we'd had time enough to prove our station's value, like the weather study and that cancer serum work, we could win out. But now I don't know. There's always talk about outlawing anything which can be dangerous, and with people scared enough, maybe they could put over the idea this time."

  For a while, the two men sat in silence, staring at each other. Jim was turning over Jonas' words, and he couldn't find a flaw in their logic. The station could be a dangerous weapon—and with two stations the tensions could increase until the danger was realized. He'd never even considered the possibility before that men might retreat from space permanently, and he didn't find it easy to take now.

  Finally he stirred unhappily. "What's all this got to do with me, Mr. Jonas? You must have some angle, or you wouldn't have sent for me."

  "It wasn't my idea," Jonas said. "Look, let me give you a little background. There are three key men on the Appropriations Committee. One of them wants to see us make the trip. One is dead set against it, but he'll go along with the majority in a vote on it—because he doesn't want to be known as an enemy of progress. The third hasn't made up his mind. Our only hope is to win him over. And he wants to talk to you."

  "I can't tell him anything he couldn't learn from you," Jim pointed out. He knew his name had been in the newspapers often enough for everyone to realize he was completely convinced of the need of space travel. It hardly made him a neutral witness.

  "I don't know why he wants you, though I can guess," Jonas said. "There are still some ugly rumors being kicked around about the fact that the Combine chief named his twins after you and Mark Emmett."

  "You mean Peter Chiam? He's only the nephew of the leader over there!"

  Jonas laughed harshly. "You mean he was! Now he's the leader. I told you we had a jinx. He succeeded his uncle two days ago, just before the Combine decided to announce this. The whole timing on it is sour."

  It couldn't have been worse, Jim realized. When he and Mark had rescued Chiam from the Combine's unsuccessful atomic rocket, the man had named his children for them, probably as a gesture of gratitude. But a few papers had painted a dark picture of it, and some of the rumors might still be kicking around. If so, some people might even think there had been some connection with the Combine's getting its foothold in space.

  It made no sense to Jim, but he'd heard enough of the results of rumor before to know what could happen.

  "When are they coming?" he asked.

  "They're flying out now. They won't trust this on the cable, so I've assigned our fastest jet plane to them. You've got plenty of time, and I'll notify you, but I wanted you to get used to the idea first." He sighed again. "I'm sorry about this, Jim. But we've got to prove our security regulations are tight, and they won't accept this fact without seeing you personally."

  Jim couldn't see that his discretion would make the station any more or less valuable, or that the visit would prove anything the FBI hadn't already discovered in clearing him. But if Jonas thought he could help, he was willing to try.

  Somehow, though, the prospect made him more nervous than the idea of landing the rocket had done. At least he'd known what to expect then. Now he couldn't even guess. And he didn't like the idea that any mistake he might make would perhaps determine the fate of all future space travel.

  He found the jeep still waiting for him, and this time the driver started for the hotel without prompting.

  He had barely stepped into the lobby when Nora Prescott was rushing t
oward him, half laughing, half crying. After a moment she drew back to stare at him, and he had some staring of his own to do. It was the first time he'd ever seen her in Earth costume. And the long hair seemed strange on her, after the universal crew cut needed in space. She looked less thin, and even better than he remembered.

  "They told me you were with Jonas," she was saying. "And I knew you'd be here eventually. I didn't even know you were down here until my plane landed! Why didn't you radio me?"

  "I didn't know myself until I was ordered down," he told her. "And what about you? Why didn't you send up word?"

  She laughed. "I guess that makes us even. But I

  just couldn't stop to think. The minute I finished schooling, I grabbed the first plane I could get. I couldn't wait to get back to the station."

  Then she was fishing in her handbag and dragging out an official piece of paper that certified she had completed such and such courses of study and was ready for all types of work on rockets for use beyond the atmosphere.

  He tried to sound sincere as he congratulated her, but he couldn't help wondering whether she'd ever have a chance to make use of it.

  Chapter 5

  Dark Outlook

  ora had to leave for the long medical examination before her return to space. She had escaped some of it the first time, since there had been a desperate need for nurses then. But now she had to make up for it. Jim felt sorry for her, remembering his own experience. But he'd have been happy to exchange examinations with her.

  The plane carrying the committee members arrived late in the afternoon, but Jonas called him to tell him that he wouldn't be quizzed until the next morning. As it turned out, Jim's examination was only one of a long list of inspections they were making on the Island project. "I can't say I'm surprised," the executive said. "They put so much emphasis on seeing you while you were down that they probably thought I'd figure on their taking the rest for granted. Anyhow, it gives you the rest of the day." From his hotel window Jim could see Jonas' big car

  going by with the three men. They hardly looked like ogres. One white-haired man could have posed for Santa Claus with the help of a beard.

  The evening papers carried the account of the Combine announcement. Jim found his way to the crowd that surrounded the newsstand in the lobby, and went back with a paper. There was little in it that Jonas hadn't told him, except that the station was to be a bigger, greatly improved model—"ending the monopolistic stranglehold now being held on the peaceful exploitation of mankind's frontiers in space," according to the official Combine release.

  Jim had just finished lunch when the car called for him to take him to the meeting room in Jonas' office building. The white-haired man turned out to be Congressman Blounce. His handshake was friendly, and the other two were pleasant enough during the introductions. Their first questions seemed like those that anyone might ask of a man who had been in space.

  There was no time when Jim could find any discourtesy. But as the time wore on, the questions sharpened. Jim found soon enough that Jonas had been partly right and partly wrong. The chief interest was on Peter Chiam and the Combine atomic rocket—but apparently not because they suspected Jim of anything; their suspicions were that the Combine men might have seen too much.

  The trouble was that the three men wanted to know more than Jim could tell them. He had seen Chiam once, for a short trip back from the disaster, and the man had been unconscious during most of that. In fact, he had said nothing beyond his first words of relief when they pulled him out. And there had been no chance for the investigating of the Combine rocket, since its driving mechanism had been ruined.

  The committee members showed some interest in the troubles of the early days on the station, but they kept coming back to the business with Chiam. From a remark dropped by Blounce, who did most of the questioning, Jim gathered that they were going to interview Mark Emmett on the same things.

  There was no question raised of Jim's patriotism, though they did ask a little about his revolt against authority during the so-called mutiny. Then, far sooner than he had expected from the way it had been going, they were thanking him and letting him go.

  Jonas walked out with him. It was a cool day, but the man was sweating. Jim stared at him in surprise. "Blounce didn't seem too set against the big jump," he observed.

  "Blounce is the one in favor of the ships," Jonas told him. "He was doing the questioning to keep it in the safest channels! What did you think of the others?"

  "They didn't seem too interested," Jim answered.

  Jonas grunted unhappily. "You're right. They seem to have made up their minds already, and this is just routine to them. I always suspect short investigations."

  "You mean they've decided against us?"

  "Maybe." Jonas stopped, about to return to the building. Then he shrugged. "Probably, Jim. I don't know. But you might do some praying on it. There's still one chance, and we'll have to hope for that."

  Jim found from Personnel Service that he was slated to return to the station, but not for three more days, when Nora would be returning with him. He inquired for her, but found she was still in Medical. It left him with nothing to do but return to the hotel, and he walked the distance, watching the people. There was a general feeling of gloom everywhere, and he saw more than one person glance up at the skies with the shadow of fear on his face.

  In his room, Jim found the maid cleaning. She studied him with doubtful, frightened eyes as she finished. At the door, she hesitated, pointing to the headline on the paper. "You going back to that station, sir?"

  "As soon as I can," he answered. "Why?"

  She shook her head. "You wouldn't catch me up there, not with that Combine thing now. Sometimes I think my dad was right. God never meant men going out there. Man just wasn't meant to leave this world until he dies."

  Jim gasped, surprised. He'd seen letters filled with the "Man Wasn't Meant" theme in some of the papers, but he'd never expected to run across it here, in the center of the rocket development where even bus-boys knew all about space. He tried to smile. "If man had been meant to eat cooked food, he'd have been designed with a stove in his throat to cook it on the way down!"

  The maid didn't smile back. She only frowned and went off down the hall with her equipment, shaking her head.

  The next day Jim avoided people. It was obvious that Jonas had been right. Fear was turning to resentment, except on the part of those directly connected with space. But sitting alone in his room gave Jim the heebie-jeebies. He finally was relieved when he got a call from Cummings, one of the head engineers at the planning section of Major Electric.

  "Jonas suggested I call you," Cummings said when he picked Jim up. "He remembers some of the trouble we ran into with the station, and he thought it might be a good idea for you to look over some of our plans. If you can read specs and blueprints, I'd like to know what a member of the construction crew thinks of the plans."

  The building was a combined factory for specialized parts and engineering and drafting plant. Jim was amazed to find that there was almost no automatic work being done. In the small quantities they used, Cummings explained, it was cheaper to handform parts than to order automatic dies that might have to be changed at any time. "If we ever get space travel on mass production, the cost will come down to a tenth of what it is," he said. "But that's in the future, if it ever comes."

  There were templates and tools being developed for the Moon ships, but no real work had been done yet. Jim lost interest in the manufacturing. Cummings took him through another huge room where the ordering of supplies was done, and into the drafting section.

  There, progress had been made. The plans were almost finished, and Jim could find little wrong with them. "You're still making things to too tight a tolerance," he suggested at last. "Down here, milling to a thousandth of an inch is good design. But in space, where the sun's heat, and the cold in the shadows, twists and distorts things, it's better if you design for a lot of free play. L
ike this."

  Cummings went through the plans with him, making notes where they applied. "Fine, we'll put these ideas through a calculating machine and it'll get the pattern, so we can catch anything else. How does it look?"

  "Like a lot of paper work," Jim answered. He meant it as a joke, but his eyes went automatically to one of the big files where correspondence was stored.

  Cummings laughed. "And you figure it's a waste of money we need, I suppose. Most people do. Here!" He pulled out a folder at random, and dug out a sheaf of papers after a quick look. "We need shock mounts on the landing legs of the ships. Light, strong, unaffected by cold or heat. We've been querying for suggestions, and we think we've finally found the answer — from a company which normally makes shock absorbers for fancy baby carriages! These cables and letters cost a lot of money, Jim—but if we'd had to start research to design our own shock mounts, it would have cost ten times as much. The paper work actually saves us money, in the long run."

  It made sense. It didn't fit with the stories Jim had read about secret rockets being built in small plants to explore the stars, but he hadn't really believed them anyhow. It seemed that half the industrial firms of North America had folders here. Maybe the reason the United States had developed the station first was simply that she had more industries. It was a new idea to him, but he could find nothing wrong with it.

  When he got back to his room with the latest papers, he found that the World Congress was holding a special meeting over the problem of the stations. The accounts of the first day didn't look good. The United States had protested the invasion of the first station's orbit, and the Combine had replied with a speech about monopoly and the dangers of having any single nation hold such power. From the news story, it was obvious that even many of the nations in the Alliance had been swayed. Fear of too much power in any hands was stirring, and there seemed many ready to believe there might be more safety in numbers. And already the suggestion of disarming all space stations and abandoning them had been made!