Mission to the Moon

by Lester Del Rey

  Most of the paper was devoted to that. But buried back in the inside, Jim found two other stories. One was an account of work at the station, in which he learned that scientists had been able to find the secret of cell division. The use of giant amoebas, nearly the size of baseballs, had given them the key to the problem. In Earth's gravity such single cells were impossible, but they were easy to grow in the weightless hub of the station. The second story was a preliminary report on the cancer serum, indicating it was already better than anything else ever used.

  Someday, perhaps, as a result of work at the station, medical science would learn to cure all cancer and to make the cells divide to regrow amputated parts of the body. But the useful functions of the station were now nearly forgotten in the fears that had grown up.

  Nora came out the next day, looking a little shaken, but smiling happily as she displayed her medical certificate. She'd passed, indicating that her body had not suffered from the long months in space. Then she sobered as she caught up with the developments that had been going on.

  "It looks bad," she admitted, but she refused to be completely miserable. "It looked bad before, Jim—and we found a way. We'll find it again. I heard Jonas say once that President Andrews is determined on getting us to the Moon, and he's a pretty resourceful man. What's playing at the movies?"

  Jim hadn't looked before, too wrapped in his blue funk. But now he was glad to go with her. It was an old picture, but one he hadn't seen and had meant to see. He'd always loved Westerns when they were good, and this was one of the best. From time to time he glanced at Nora, not sure that she'd meant it when she said she liked them, too. But she seemed to be enjoying this one.

  He felt better until the newsreels of the World Congress meeting were switched on. That was bad enough. But the riot that followed was worse. One of the smaller European nations had been backing up the United States at the World Congress. Some fanatic leader had whipped up the people against that, almost overnight, with wild warnings of the dangers of the stations, and there had been a near revolution against the leaders. Hundreds had been killed before the riots were put down.

  It was a somewhat backward nation, and the people were probably superstitious about anything out of their usual experience. By itself, the news didn't mean much. But the reaction of the audience did. There was very little of the indignation Jim had expected when the fanatic's shouts were quoted.

  Out on the street the newsboys were crying an extra, and Jim bought a paper. He drew back under the lights with Nora to read it.

  The World Congress had finally voted, and the news was bad. They had ruled that orbits were free for anyone to use. But they'd gone further. They had ruled that no nation could have more than one extra-commercial station; it meant that the United States was limited to one, but the Combined People's States— theoretically a union of nations—could put up one for each of its members! And it also meant that the Combine had swung a lot of nations from the Alliance in the voting.

  Jim walked back with Nora, discussing the news. He didn't even see Jonas in the lobby until the man caught his arm.

  "You two are checking out on the next flight up," he told them, and his face was spread with the widest smile Jim had seen. "I've already had your things packed and waiting."

  Jim held out the paper. "You mean you haven't seen the news?"

  "Oh, that!" Jonas shoved the paper aside, still beam

  ing. "It's ancient history by now. I've got later news. Kids, Congress just finished holding an emergency session. They not only reported our appropriation bill out of Committee, but they passed it and President Andrews has signed it. We've got the funds for the Moon trip!"

  He told them a little about it as he drove them out to the rocket field. It had been the World Congress ruling that had decided things. Such an adverse decision couldn't be taken lying down. And if the United States had to take a back seat in number of permitted stations, Senator Blounce had pointed out, there was still one place where they could win. Nobody could build a second moon, and it was up to the United States to get there at once, now.

  Obviously, the majority had agreed with him.

  Chapter 6 Full Speed Ahead

  ack at the station, there wasn't too much time for thinking, as work got under way. It was to be a rush job, now that it was finally started. Parts were being tooled out on Earth and rushed up, along with the great loads of fuel for the long trip. All the supply rockets were running on full schedule.

  Jim buckled down to work, and gave up speculating on the strange ways of getting things done politically. It was obvious that the American spokesmen at the World Congress had deliberately worked against their own cause to get exactly the ruling that had come through; President Andrews must have planned the whole thing as the only way to get the appropriations passed. It was too tricky for Jim, but it had worked, and he didn't care how.

  The first job was to bring back the old crew from the relay station. Work there was almost finished, and

  it could be completed before all the men would be needed for the Moon ships.

  Jim brought the workers down, a few at a time. Most of them were delighted at the chance to sign on with the new job. They went to work at once, throwing up a big tanklike living quarters about fifteen miles beyond the station, where most of the building would be done. There wasn't room for them now in the station itself, but they were used to working without gravity and to roughing it. Dan Bailey had come back on the first trip and was supervising the building of the shack, as they called it.

  Surprisingly, though, there were some who wouldn't be joining the new job. The appropriation had come too late. Worried by the fear of having nothing further to do in space, and tempted by fabulous contracts and salaries, a number of men and women had accepted bids for work on the Combine station.

  One man explained it reluctantly to Jim. "Sure, I know it isn't good. But what could we do? Even with the Moon ships, our country won't have much more work up here. And by the time the Combine finishes all its stations, I'll be too old to work anyhow. So I signed on where I could stay in space." He sighed, though, as he said it, and his eyes went down toward the original station. "Wish I'd known they were building the Moon ships in time, all the same."

  Still, with a trickle of new men, there would be enough. It wouldn't be as big a job as building the station had been.

  Then the last of the men from the relay station were down, and Jonas came up to join Thorndyke in supervising the job of getting ready for the big leap. Jim turned the ferry back to its regular pilot who had recovered, and went for his assignment.

  "You'll be one of the foremen, of course," Jonas told him. "I'll let you work on the cargo ship. Bailey will take one passenger ship and Terry Rodriguez has joined up to work on the other. I guess you've earned the foreman job."

  But he seemed reluctant, and Jim remembered the doubts before about his ability to handle the men. Still, he'd handled them when they'd staged the "mutiny," and he knew them better than he had before.

  He studied the plans again, along with Terry and Dan. There were to be three ships. Two would make the trip both ways, but the cargo ship would be meant to land on the Moon and stay there. All the ships were ugly things, compared to the sleek, streamlined rockets up from Earth. They would be big frameworks of girders, a hundred and sixty feet long and a little over a hundred feet wide. At the front, each would carry a big metal sphere for the crew. Below that, on the passenger ships, there would be huge cylindrical tanks for fuel, and the other end would be built up of banks of rocket motors, welded to a flat plate on which the landing legs would be fastened. The cargo ship, or tank, would have the same living sphere and motors, but its middle section would be similar to a big silo, filled with supplies for the stay on the Moon.

  The main feature of all would be the "space balloons" that would hold most of the fuel for the takeoff. These would be four big nylon globes, held by a framework to the sides of each ship. Once the takeoff was finished, the
se would be tossed off into space. And it was on these that the work was to begin, since they would also serve as reservoirs for the fuel that would take countless trips from Earth to deliver.

  They drew lots for the crewmen, with a few exceptions where requests had been made to work under Terry or Dan. Two men had applied for work under Jim, however, and that gave him some self-confidence.

  They began assembling at once. Out here, there was no maze of girders to act as walkways yet. They had to move about almost entirely by the use of the tiny hand rockets they carried. A man had no leverage, usually. He could move a piece of metal or a folded strip of nylon, but he had to shove himself the other way at the same time. It was only by careful use of the hand rockets that progress could be made.

  It was tough on the few new men, and tougher on Jim than he'd expected. Work was hard enough in the space suits, at best, but he hadn't realized how much he'd counted on the support he had originally received from the beginning framework of the station. Here, the experience of the men who had worked on the relay station gave them an edge.

  But slowly the big balloons took shape. It was slower than the time schedule called for, and Jim studied the work, trying to drive his men on. He was doing twice as much as any of them at this stage, but it still seemed to crawl. Unconsciously, he'd been expecting them to work with the same fevered speed they had shown when finishing the station, but they somehow weren't doing it.

  "You're pressing too hard, Jim," Dan told him. "You'll only get accidents that way."

  Yet Dan's work was farther along than his, and so was Terry's. Jim buckled down, studying the work and trying to reduce it to its most efficient form. He found ways of sewing and cementing the sections together without more than half the usual motions, and he tried to get the others to follow. He wasn't too successful. They'd formed habits already, and there were snags in trying to switch over.

  Even then Terry beat him in getting the first balloon finished. Jim watched it being filled from the tanks of helium and tested for leaks. It was a good job. But he felt sick as he saw the large gaps in his own job.

  The men could feel his reaction. He was trying to be fair, and he knew he couldn't force them to work as hard as he did. But his annoyance must have registered. He tried setting the pace, and he had to admit that they attempted to follow his lead. But it didn't seem to help.

  Then a worker on his crew made a bad move with his rocket pistol, and sent its searing flame scorching against the fabric of the incomplete balloon. Without air, it couldn't burn, but the plastic nylon melted. A whole section was ruined, and they had to take time out to uncement it and replace it from the small supply of spare parts.

  Jim held a meeting that night in the quarters, and was surprised to find that there was resentment because of that. All he wanted to do was to go over safety precautions with them and to try to lay out the work on a schedule they could keep. He was unprepared for the comment of one of the men.

  "We can't all be supermen, Jim," the man said.

  "Nobody expects you to be, Bill," Jim told him. "All I'm asking you to do is try things a different way. We can't risk any delay on this, and you all know that as well as I do. Until we're well along, we're running the danger that the Combine may jump the gun on us with a Moon trip of their own—or at least the announcement of one, to throw pressure against us. Are there any kicks?"

  Bill shook his head glumly. "Nobody's kicking. We haven't forgotten the way we got along before. And if you have any kicks, we'll listen."

  Jim couldn't object to that, and for a while he thought the meeting had been a success, But there was another accident the next day, and another. Whatever was needed to get smooth teamwork out of the men remained a mystery. Dan Bailey's crew finished their first balloon, found a minor leak, and corrected it. There was still a day's work ahead on the one Jim was supervising.

  But at last it was finished, and they began blowing it up, coating it with a sprayed plastic film. Bubbles would form where there were any leaks, and the plastic would help to strengthen the balloon, even if it proved perfect.

  Jim's face sagged as he watched. It looked as if there wasn't a seam without a leak! He jetted his way closer. It wasn't quite as bad as a total ruin, but it was worse than his darkest fears.

  "All right," he told the men through the little radio in his helmet. "Knock off. We'll patch it up tomorrow."

  They said nothing as they coasted back to the living shack. But he could see the looks the other crews threw at them. It wasn't going to help any to have his men feel that they'd been the only crew to mess up a job.

  "Guess I wasn't ready to be a foreman," he told Nora. "Maybe I'm a lone wolf. I can do a job, but I can't tell others to do it."

  She patted his shoulder sympathetically, but he could see the worry thick in her expression. "It's your first try at it, Jim. You can't expect to build Rome in a day."

  But Jim knew it wasn't just inexperience. He'd had experience in the final days of the station. And he couldn't see that he was doing anything differently now.

  "Maybe that's the trouble," Nora suggested. "Maybe things aren't the same as they were when we were trying to prove to Jonas that he was wrong. Maybe this is just a job to the men, instead of a challenge."

  "There isn't a man out there who doesn't want the Moon trip as much as I do!" Jim told her.

  "Maybe. But maybe they don't feel there's all the rush about it as much as you do. Why don't you see Mr. Jonas?"

  It was the only thing he could do. The taxi had already gone back to the station, which meant he'd have to make it without assistance. But he stood up and began buckling on his suit again. "You're right. I'd better see him."

  "Now?" she asked. She frowned doubtfully. "At least you can wait while we radio the taxi. Jim, I don't like your making the jump. If you miss . . ."

  He shook his head. "I won't miss. And it's quicker this way."

  He snapped his helmet shut before she could protest further and headed for the lock, gathering up several of the hand rockets on the way. Outside, he lined himself up carefully and blasted off toward the station. Handling the little rockets was tricky, since every motion in space was like skating on completely frictionless ice, but he was used to that.

  He watched his progress from the first blast and made a careful correction. Out here, anything in motion tended to stay at the same speed and in the same direction forever, unless acted on by some other force. He watched the station come nearer rapidly, but his thoughts were on the interview.

  It wasn't pleasant to have to confess failure, but he had to face facts, pleasant or not. He had failed.

  He corrected for a landing and used a counterblast to slow until he could grab a handrail. The hub attendant opened the lock for him and helped him off with his suit.

  Jonas was in the commissary when Jim located him. He looked up in surprise and then waved the younger man to a table opposite him. "Hi, Jim. I was just thinking of taxiing over to see you. Glad you saved me a trip. I heard you had a little trouble."

  "I made a botch of things, sir. And I don't know why!"

  The other nodded. "I was afraid that might happen. You've been developing a lot from the self-centered, unsocial kid you were a year ago. But I didn't think you were ready to lead a crew yet. How old are you, Jim?"

  "Nineteen."

  "Yeah. That makes you younger than a lot of the men you're giving orders to. It makes things a little tougher. Terry's no older, of course, but he's used to working with labor gangs. Know what the trouble is?" At Jim's puzzled headshake, Jonas pushed back his coffee and went on. "You can't delegate work. You can't realize yet that people have differences and trust them to get things done if you let them pick their own speed. You still think like a young rebel, at war with a timetable. Maybe it works for you, but under these circumstances, it won't work for others."

  "But I've tried to relax," Jim protested. "I don't want to be tough on anyone."

  "You are, though. The men know when you'
re dissatisfied. They see you take the tough jobs yourself because you don't trust them. As a young fighter against hopeless odds, you were terrific, Jim. But you can't force men to join a rebellion against that timetable; they can't see it the way you do—and maybe they're right... So what am I going to do with you?"

  "Fire me, I suppose," Jim said bitterly.

  But it came as a shock when Jonas nodded. "You're

  right. I can't do anything else. I'll put Thorndyke out with your men—he learned a lot on the relay job. And you can take over the taxi jockeying again, where you're the best man, anyhow."

  Jim stood up abruptly. "Sorry I failed."

  "You didn't fail. I just gave you a job you weren't ready for. Sometimes it pays, in the long run. Get the taxi and take it back with you. And next time, Jim, don't wait so long to come to me with your troubles!"

  Jim stumbled back up the spoke to the hub and into the little space taxi. He hadn't realized how much he'd counted on proving that he'd learned enough to fill the job. He wasn't used to failing.

  Chapter 7 cracky

  Jim got used to the idea in the days that followed. ■ I The ships began growing as the balloons were fin-U ished and construction was started on the framework. Once the idea of streamlining was forgotten, the ships had a certain functional beauty. Even the naked track, on which were to be mounted the solar mirror for power, the radar screen, and the unloading cranes, seemed to fit into the general lines.

  Surprisingly, nobody laughed at Jim's demotion. The men of his crew seemed relieved, but now they spoke to him more freely, as if he were one of them. Sometimes, when there was no need for taxiing supplies from the ships to the materials base, he went out to work with Thorndyke's crew. They were back on schedule once more, and Jim could feel some satisfaction in that. But his one big relief came from finding his name still on the list of pilots for the Moon ships. Everyone was too busy to worry about the Combine,