Mission to the Moon

by Lester Del Rey

  Reluctantly, Halpern nodded.

  "All right," he decided, "I'll buy that as a good reason, unofficially. And I'm glad to see human beings on the trip instead of an automatic computer."

  He nodded to Jim. "You've been chosen as pilot, Stanley. And your course calls for takeoff day after tomorrow. You're in complete command, and under no obligation to accept any suggestions from the others, though you'll be responsible for their safety."

  Charkejian followed Jim into the hall, chuckling softly. "We still have an automatic computer, Jim," he said. "The best one ever created, and the only one

  that can handle unplanned emergencies—the human brain. Don't ever underrate it!" He let the chuckle creep back again, well pleased with himself. "If you're surprised by all this, Jim, so am I! I never thought Chiam would be able to put it over!"

  Jim still couldn't believe it as he went back to his quarters. He was almost sure that after such good luck, something terrible was bound to happen. He knew it was superstition, but he'd been unable to shake the idea of having to pay for all good luck, and it bothered him now.

  CkCtptCt JO Once Around the Moon

  I

  he only trouble came from Freddy. He was delighted when he learned Jim would pilot the ship— and sure that Jim would find some way for him to go along.

  "You can't be alone with a Combine man and somebody else we don't even know," he said seriously. "Suppose they decide to steal the ship and land on the Moon? They could claim it for the Combine, and then where'd we be?"

  "You've read too many comic books," Jim accused him. "In the first place, Pierotti's a neutral, and if Charkejian tried anything, he'd have to help me. Then it wouldn't do any good to land—there wouldn't be enough fuel for takeoff again. Besides, I can't take you—and that's final, Freddy!"

  "How can you stop me if I stow away?"

  Jim found nothing funny in the idea. There was

  too much chance that the kid might try it. And while it seemed impossible for him to find any hiding place, Jim didn't want to have to go looking for him.

  "Try it if you like, Freddy. But if you do, and if you succeed, do you know what I'll have to do? And I'm not joking about this, either!"

  "What?"

  "I'd have to dump you," Jim told him. It was the truth, too, he realized as he said it. "With the ship carrying just enough oxygen for three men, your going along would mean we'd run out of air before we got back. I'd have to put you into your suit—or maybe just the way you are—and shove you out through the airlock."

  "Why not Charkejian?" The boy was studying Jim's face, and the humor drained out of him as he saw that Jim meant what he had said.

  "Because I'm responsible for Charkejian, but not for a stowaway. The two men belong there. You don't. Without official orders, I can't take you."

  "All right then, let them steal the Moon from us!" Freddy was bitter. He stomped off, probably to bother his father.

  Jim found out later that he'd guessed right about that. It must have been a rough job, convincing the boy that he couldn't have the one thing he wanted most. But apparently it was settled when Halpern finally gave his son permission to take command of the ferry up to the relay station. He made sure from Jim that the boy could handle it, and then gave in.

  But Jim had little time to worry about Freddy as he supervised the installation of the extra supplies they would need for three. The little globe was going to be a tight squeeze now, but they could stand it for ten days.

  Charkejian and Pierotti were out, getting familiar with space and free fall conditions. There wasn't much question about the Swiss observer. He seemed to take to space naturally. But Charkejian was having a tough time. It was always harder for older people.

  "It's purely mental," he gasped once as Jim suggested he go back and rest. "The body can handle it. But habits keep making me think I'm falling. I'll be all right."

  Jim wasn't so sure. Less than one out of three could learn to stand space, and that included much younger men. "You'd better rest for a while," he suggested again.

  The scientist shook his head, gasping as his body jerked. "I tell you it isn't physical, Jim. I can't rest my brain—I've got to make it accept the facts, that's all."

  Whether his theory was right or not, he began to improve. He obviously suffered horribly at first, and his body lost nearly five pounds. But in the end even Jim could find no fault with the way he reacted.

  Their course had been plotted precisely, second by second. It had to be done by rule now, not by feel. The trip would take five days to the Moon, and they had to aim at a spot where the satellite would be at the end of that time, rather than heading straight for the ball they could see. Then they had to depend on the pull of the Moon to swing them around and send them back—again on a precisely figured course.

  The whole staff was out to watch the three men as they finally pulled themselves into the little globe and tested it. Jim spotted Freddy in the group watching and breathed more easily. He'd been afraid the boy might try stowing away.

  There was just time for a final checkout before they started, and Jim went over everything. It seemed to be all in order, down to the plastic bottles of liquid sealed with little nipples. No free liquid could be taken, since they'd be without apparent weight all the way.

  Then he dropped to the pneumatic seat, while the other two buckled down beside him, facing through the plastic bubble that let them see. In the rockets from Earth, no windows were used, since the heat of the return might have ruined them. But here it was safe as long as they could cut off the glare of the sun.

  They were on the opposite side of the Earth from their destination, traveling at the speed of the station— 15,840 miles an hour. To reach escape, they'd have to raise that to nearly 25,000. But there was no need for full-escape velocity here, since they only had to fight against Earth's pull to the so-called "neutral line" where the Moon's gravity would begin to overcome that of Earth. They would attain a top speed of only 19,500 miles an hour—only a little over a mile a second more than the speed of the station. Four-fifths of the work had already been done in getting the ship and fuel up the first thousand miles.

  As the indicator reached zero, Jim cut on the blast, watching his accelerometer, and following the chart. The little ship began to pull away from its orbit behind the station.

  There was no heavy thrust this time. It was like the trip to the relay station in that respect, and would require only a slightly higher top speed. They began to move out, still circling the Earth, but at a rising height.

  Then they were another quarter of the way around, with their circular orbit straightening out toward their destination, and they began to rise more rapidly. Thirty-three minutes from takeoff they were nearly twenty thousand miles up. Jim cut the motors, and set back. From now on, there was nothing to do but drift, while the ship slowed under Earth's pull until finally it would barely crawl across to the pull of the Moon, to begin picking up speed again.

  Pierotti looked up. "Very nice. And now we have nothing to do but talk. Well, I suppose I might as well turn in, since I sleep the first shift."

  He went back to the sling that had to serve for all of them, one at a time, and was soon asleep, the straps that held him in moving slowly with his breathing. Charkejian sat at the port, staring out at space, like a small boy on his first train ride, while Jim began checking the orbit.

  They were still within calling distance of the station, though the survey ship was equipped with only a small transmitter. They had sacrificed radio power for more oxygen for emergencies. Jim began calling, to be answered almost at once. It was Halpern's voice.

  "You're doing fine, Jim," the colonel reported. "The observatory has been tracking you, and the calculations indicate you're right on course. Any messages?"

  "Can't think of any," Jim told him. There was probably some fine and noble thing he should say to go down in the books, but he'd only left a few minutes before, and there was nothing to report.

&nb
sp; "Okay, then. Good luck," Halpern wished him, and cut off.

  Jim had drawn the second shift for the sling, and he turned in when Pierotti got up. He'd looked forward to this a long time, but now there was nothing to it. When they reached the Moon, it might be different, but until then sleep was as good an answer as any to killing time.

  He woke to see Charkejian busy at the tiny electronic range, preparing the cans of food for them. With the solar batteries they carried on the hull, there was no lack of power for the range and the fans that had to keep moving the air, or for the air-conditioning apparatus.

  Charkejian passed out the food, and then turned back to some discussion he'd been having with Pierotti, obviously still not ready for sleep.

  "Sure, Chiam's an enigma to most of the world now," the scientist said. "He's only been in office for a short time, and there isn't much record to judge him on. But I knew him rather well when he was first taking up the study of rockets. He isn't at all like his uncle before him."

  "I pray God you're right on that," Pierotti said fervently.

  Charkejian nodded. "You should. Our former leader was a savage at heart. He was loaded with national pride for outmoded things and hate for what he couldn't understand. I'm surprised the world didn't have worse trouble from him, and a lot of us were as worried as you were. But Peter's a realist. He'll be hard—he has to be. But he can face facts, and he can give in when he should. I think you'll find things a lot easier in the world from now on."

  "Maybe," Pierotti agreed. "It had to come sooner or later. Your Combine can't hold back; it opened itself to progress when it taught all the people to read. Once they can get knowledge, they're bound to begin thinking for themselves."

  "They'll have to. With colonies on the Moon, there won't be time for some of the old superstition and ignorance."

  When Charkejian had gone off to sleep, Jim turned to the young Swiss. "Do many of the Combine talk like that?" he asked.

  Pierotti shook his head. "Unfortunately not. Nor of any group. Charkejian's patriotic enough, but he can see the faults of his land, and he'd rather have them corrected. There are too many who think patriotism means only a blind acceptance of all the old prejudices. But I guess you'd have to say Charkejian is a scientist first of all. It makes him an internationalist, almost automatically."

  Then he smiled. "But don't sell him short in estimating Peter Chiam. The fact that Chiam picked him might indicate that the young ruler is leaning in the same direction. Some of us hope so. If so, and with your President Andrews favoring better relations, some of the small countries may be able to breathe again, in spite of the stations."

  They were already further out than man had ever been before, and their speed had fallen to a fraction of what it had been. The Earth was now only another moon to their eyes. Charkejian filled most of his time playing chess with whichever of the others was up. He was nearly an expert, and while he beat them, he seemed to get most of his pleasure from teaching them on the tiny board.

  The halfway mark was long since past. Now the Moon was coming into view and growing. Jim re-checked his calculations, but he could find nothing wrong with them. At the start of the fourth day, their speed was down to 800 miles an hour, and they seemed to stand still in space.

  At about 24,000 miles from the Moon's orbit, they began to reach beyond the Earth's sphere of influence, and the Moon's gravity began to draw them, speeding them up again. They could now see the details more clearly than most telescopic views from Earth. Without atmosphere, the Moon stood out harshly against space. The big craters, the so-called seas, and the strange straight rays were all visible.

  Then it became harder to watch without a feeling of vertigo as the ship neared the big satellite. Jim cut on the cameras, guiding them from the instrument board. They seemed doomed to almost instant death on the harsh landscape below them, but he fought down the instinctive fear.

  They were approaching the forward side of the Moon. The distance dropped sharply, while the big orb filled all their view. Pierotti wiped nervous perspiration from his face, but Charkejian sat staring at it as if he were coming home after a life of exile.

  They sped by the Moon then, letting it pass between them and Earth. Its pull had distorted their orbit, but not enough to capture them or prevent their falling back to the station. A few minutes later they began to slip back from the top of their ascent and to begin passing by the Moon again. It rushed away to the side as they headed back toward Earth.

  Jim had finally seen the other side of the Moon, about which so much had been speculated. The three men were the first ever to do so, since the satellite always turned the same face toward Earth.

  But there had been nothing unusual to see, so far as he had observed. "It looks the same on both sides," he muttered.

  Charkejian grinned at him. "To you, I suppose so. But to me, no. There was one mountain range there that was fantastic—it must be the highest spot on the Moon. And some of those craters! It's a whole new territory to map and explore, Jim. And I want to be one of the men to do it."

  Jim could agree with that. Mapping was outside his knowledge, but more than ever he wanted to set foot on the pitted, meteor-cratered surface they had passed so closely.

  Chapter 11 Orbit's End

  J

  im's figures showed that they were on a slightly different course on the return, but all of space looked alike, and it might as well have been the same one. With the high point of the trip finished, there was nothing to look forward to. Of course, there were the photographic films, already developed in the cameras. But these were locked, and couldn't be opened until they got back.

  Until the last few minutes of their return, there would be nothing to do but talk and play chess with Charkejian. They were all getting bored now, the scientist last of all, and Jim was beginning to look forward to a change in their diet and a chance to take some kind of bath.

  The air was good enough, but too many passages through the conditioning machinery had given it a

  chemical smell that was now mixed with the odor of their own bodies, too closely confined.

  Living in such cramped quarters would have been hard at best, but the crude comforts here were far from the best. Jim supposed they were all going through a slight case of cabin fever. Various habits of the others began to get on his nerves a trifle, and he noticed them flinching at some of the things they saw him do.

  There was another change. They had spent quite a bit of their conversational time discussing the possibility of setting up a colony on the Moon someday-one that could be built mostly underground, but with its own hydroponic gardens to grow food and maybe with a means to bake water and air from the rocks. In time, they had even considered, there might be a means of making rocket fuel on the Moon, which would cut down enormously on the difficulty of the trips.

  It had grown to be a sort of accepted thing, and somehow they had begun to consider it an all-embracing project, belonging to all nations. Now, though, differences began to crop up. It was obvious that the sight of the Earth ahead of them was reminding them that it wasn't just a world of people, but also a world of separate nations, and of jealousies. Instead of "our" colonies, it began to be "your" colony, or "my" colony.

  Jim found himself as guilty of that as the others.

  In fact, Pierotti was least to blame. Probably because of the fact that he came from a small country, he simply called it the colony.

  As soon as he could, Jim sent out a message toward the station, giving all the details he could remember. He wasn't sure that they could receive his call, but he hoped so. The sensitive receivers there might very well pick up his feeble signal. He got a sort of an answer, but his own receiver was too weak, and the words were lost in the general noise level.

  They had long since left the pull of the Moon behind, and it was receding rapidly, far off to the side. Now they began to pick up speed at the same rate they had lost it before.

  Some of the irritation vanished as they drew near
er the station. With the realization that they wouldn't have to put up with the discomforts much longer, they seemed somehow better able to take them. By the time they were within a day of the station, things seemed to flow back to a more normal level. They probably all felt a little foolish at some of their bad temper, but nobody mentioned it, realizing that they were all in the same situation.

  At last they began the full rush down toward the landing. They were passing the Earth now, falling in a tighter and tighter curve as it pulled them harder, and approaching the orbit of the station.

  Jim had been doing doubly cautious checking now, with Charkejian going over his figures. But he finally fell back on the radio.

  Halpern's reply was nearly instant and greatly excited. "Congratulations! Congratulations to all of you —official ones, too, from just about every government there is. So far, you're being given the Croix de Guerre, or its equivalent, in every form made. Jim, they're even discussing a Congressional Medal of Honor. How's it feel?"

  "Just plain tired," he admitted. "How'm I doing?"

  "Couldn't be better. From what we can see, you won't have more than a normal amount of correcting to do." Halpern apparently was rustling papers on his desk, and there were other voices in the background. "Nora says hi, and she'll see you later, Jim. Want me to read you any of the messages? We picked up your broadcast from the beginning of your descent pretty clearly, and I understand a tape of that is a best seller on Earth now. So maybe you'd prefer to hear a royalty statement."

  Jim assumed Halpern was kidding about that. He couldn't claim royalties on a news broadcast, so far as he knew. But he was glad to hear of the interest it had aroused. Now, however, he had other business. "I'm beginning to brake," he said. "Want to talk to the others?"