Mission to the Moon

by Lester Del Rey

  Jim stood up, just as Halpern rose to his feet. The colonel twisted his lips in a tired smile. "Don't say it, Jim. I know what everyone thinks, and I appreciate it. Just don't say it!"

  He went back inside again, and Jim headed for the work, calling the others to follow him. There were only nine days left before their own takeoff must be made, and there was still a tremendous amount to be done, even with all the overtime that was being put in.

  A little better reaction from Earth might have helped somewhat with the morale here, though. Down there, the wave of sympathy for Freddy had been whipped up by the papers until a thousand crazy schemes for rescue were being proposed each minute. Then it had begun to die, as the limit of people's sympathies was reached. And there were plenty of selfish interests ready to capitalize on it and to stir up other feelings.

  It seemed that the World Congress had been turned into a sounding board for many of those interests. Hints gave place to outright accusations that the United States had either faked the trip or deliberately sent Freddy ahead, using him as an excuse for a wild rescue drive that would justify the attempt to take the Moon for national interests. There was a big movement started to halt all such trips until a complete investigation could be made by members of the Congress.

  On the surface, the Combine was against the movement. But Jim noticed that it nearly always seemed to originate in one of the Combine's satellite states.

  Things broke into a wild debate that came within a hairbreadth of resulting in an end to space travel, though the United States managed to work up a last-minute rally and turn off the pressure into a resolution that actually had no meaning.

  "I suppose you're going to tell me Chiam isn't deliberately using all this to halt our trip until he can beat us?" Jim asked Charkejian.

  The scientist shrugged. "I can't tell you anything. Of course he is trying to keep your nation from getting any exclusive hold on the Moon. I said he could be hard when he needed to be, and he'll fight tooth and nail for his own country, just as you would. His gratitude to you doesn't mean he can grant all political favors. But I don't think he wants to stop all space flight. He's always been as much in favor of that as your own President."

  It probably didn't matter, since the attempt had failed, Jim decided. But then Jonas set him straight on that. He came back from a rush trip to Earth, looking wearier than ever. The government was growing sick of the whole space business, except for President Andrews. The planners of the trip still had a lot of friends, but they couldn't count on enough.

  "One more incident of any kind," Jonas told Jim, "and they may cancel the whole thing. They're sure we are totally irresponsible and just wasting taxpayers' money. The fact that the two ships got through our hands proves it to a lot of people, even though we can't police every nook and cranny up here."

  The big problem remained the fuel. With only three of the supply rockets now, it was going to be a close job getting enough up in time. Jim grumbled at Mark at times as he watched Gantry and the other two pilots overworking themselves and their ships. With a million gallons of fuel needed, three ships weren't enough—not to mention the extra gallons Mark had drained from them for his trip.

  "Maybe it should have been done under World Congress mandate," Pierotti suggested. He was still at the station and apparently meant to stay until somebody recalled him. He was working as hard as anyone, and the blisters on his hands proved it.

  "Nonsense," Charkejian snorted. "Did such a mandate ever work? What can a world debating society do about running a space station?"

  "It would be more than a debating society if it had the Moon or the station," Pierotti said. "With power, they'd turn into a real international government. Most of the men on the Congress are fine people—even your representatives 1"

  Charkejian laughed, without taking insult. Jim wondered how much either was right, but he had no way of knowing. The nations wanted power too much to give it up, even to a World Congress of their own election. People might want peace, but nobody could relinquish the power struggle long enough to have any hope of such permanent peace.

  There were rumors that President Andrews and Peter Chiam were exchanging messages on the subject, but Jim no longer tried to keep up with it all. His job was to get the ships to the Moon. Beyond that, it was up to the mercy of God!

  Jonas went down again, this time to appeal for faster handling of the fuel, and to attempt to speed up the assembling of another supply rocket. But he had little hope for success. Even though only a third stage was needed—the first and second had been dropped by Mark on the way up—it couldn't be finished in the few remaining days. There was only one week left.

  "And we'd better make it then, even if we have little hope of saving Freddy and Mark," he told Jim. "Once we get there, people will accept it. But if we can't take off in time, they'll be sure all the stories they've heard are true. Besides, the Combine station is finished and they may be ready to start work on a Moon trip of their own. With all the authority in the hands of one man, they can move faster than we can."

  When Jonas came back the next trip, Jim knew he had failed to speed things up. They would have to do with what they had. He saw a strange look on Jonas' face, but the man refused to discuss anything but his failure. "There are some odd things brewing in top circles, Jim. But they won't help us get going any faster, and I can't discuss them," was all he would say.

  Jim forgot it and turned back to the work. Actually, finishing in time wasn't completely hopeless, unless the pilots cracked up under the strain. They were barely waiting for inspection on their ships between trips. In the long run, that could be dangerous; but they were willing to take the risk for the few more days. There were a few extra pilots to spell them, but again they preferred to stick it out, feeling that less experienced men would take more time or waste fuel that was needed for the big jump.

  Without accidents, the work might just be finished in time.

  And naturally there had to be an accident. Bailey discovered the trouble on one of his rounds of inspection. Something had happened to one of the fuel tanks. Either it had been faulty and its weakness had finally shown up, or carelessness had injured it.

  At any rate, it had sprung a leak, and the fuel inside was vaporizing and disappearing into space.

  There was no way to see it easily, and it could have been that way for some time. The hole was small, and the big globe was as full-looking as ever, since the vapor pressure kept it inflated. But a careful inspection showed that a large portion of the fuel had boiled away. In space, at zero pressure, most liquids boiled at much lower temperatures than normal, and the heat of the sun helped. The bags and the whole ships were painted white to reflect the sunlight, but some got through, even when the black patches left for heating were not turned outward.

  They managed to seal the hole and to run careful tests on all the other balloons. But by then the damage had been done.

  Jim and Thorndyke checked each other on their calculations as Jonas and Halpern paced about, waiting

  for the decision. Finally Thorndyke shook his head. "Not a chance. No matter what we do, we can't refill that fuel tank and all the others that need it in time. The ships won't carry it up, and from what the Island reports, they don't have enough spare hydrazine. They weren't counting on another rush order."

  "They should have counted on it," Jonas muttered. "In this business, nothing ever goes right. All right, can we take off with what we will have?"

  Jim vetoed that. "We're not leaving that much margin. We had already decided we could shave ten percent off—and that leaves no room for further cuts."

  Halpern gave up, looking sicker. He must have had some faint hopes until then, but now he buried them. "All right, if you can't you can't!"

  "We'll still try to do it, anyway," Jonas told him. "We've got to try, until the last second."

  "Maybe we could try something," Jim suggested suddenly. It was a wild idea he'd thought of idly before, but never taken seriously. "If
we could save fuel on the return, it would make things possible. And if we cut into Earth's atmosphere—just barely touching it—to slow our speed until we'd rise up to the station about like a supply rocket again . . ."

  "No!" Halpern vetoed it flatly. "Someday it might be done, and it would save a tremendous amount of fuel to use atmospheric braking on the landing. But these ships couldn't take enough temperature rise."

  used a few tons on the trip to rescue him. At least he can send that much up to us."

  "Okay." Charkejian laughed softly. "Ill tell him. But something tells me you'd never be much of a success in dealing with absolute rulers diplomatically, Jim."

  Jim didn't care about that. If it got him even one extra gallon of fuel, it was worth the try. He wouldn't count on it, and he didn't like asking for it, knowing he'd probably be refused. But something had to be done, and he could think of nothing else.

  Chapter 15

  I

  wo days before the proposed takeoff, there was still a large gap left in their requirements. Jim had heard nothing from Chiam, and he wasn't surprised at that. The best figures they could work out indicated that the fuel they would have would leave them absolutely no margin of safety.

  Jim had suggested taking the risk and hoping that they could manage to get guided missiles sent with fuel, piloted by automatic computers, in time. But it had been only a desperate thought, and he hadn't protested when Halpern told him flatly it couldn't be done.

  Jim sat in his quarters now, angry at Freddy for having taken his films, which might have contained some hints. He could get other films, but it was too late now.

  The copy of Oberth's book caught his attention, and

  he turned to it. Then he shrugged. It was a remarkable book for its time, but how could it help now?

  He reached for it again, nevertheless. Anything was better than nothing. There was nothing there, however. And yet, now that he thought of it, he was sure the faint idea that was nibbling at the back of his mind had been in another book by the same man. Probably a later one. He tried to picture it. The Road to Space Travel. Something in that!

  And then the title jiggled his memory. The idea sounded fantastic, and yet . . .

  Halpern's aide stuck his head in. "Jim! Boss wants you on the double!"

  Jim groaned, trying to fix his memory firmly as he followed. He found Halpern standing and staring at one of the portholes that had been installed in the office.

  The colonel pointed out. "Jim, take a look at that!"

  There were two rockets out there. And as Jim studied them, he could recognize the design from pictures he had seen as belonging to the Combine. "You mean that—that Chiam sent fuel?" he asked.

  "So the ships claim, or I think they do. They apparently didn't have time to find an interpreter. Here, Ernst!" He handed a microphone to Charkejian, who had come running in, still in his pajamas. "Find out if it's what we think it is."

  Charkejian tried one language and then switched smoothly to another as he heard the answer. He listened, and then nodded.

  "It's hydrazine," he said. "The last thing I expected. Will wonders never cease. Something big must be going on down on Earth if the leader will go that far. Want a translation, or just the idea?"

  "Just the facts," Halpern said. "And make it quick, because I don't want anyone down on Earth spotting them and deciding it's an attack before I can send word."

  Charkejian talked a minute more and turned back. "They have full loads of hydrazine. Sorry they have no more free ships. Can bring maybe four more loads before your takeoff time. Chiam regrets they can't send more. And don't worry, Colonel—apparently he was delayed while he squared it through channels. Your superiors know what the ships mean by now."

  Jim went out with the ferry while Terry took the taxi. Either the Combine used the same type valves they did or had made sure the ships were fitted for the job. They began transferring the precious liquid. The Combine pilots had avoided getting too close until identified, but it made only a trifling difference in the time needed. The next ships could come in closer, anyhow.

  Six loads, Jim thought. It sounded like a lot, and it represented close to two hundred tons of total freight. It sounded like a lot, and yet it was only a small quantity for the big tanks. But it might mean the difference between merely operating with a fractional margin and not having enough to make the trip.

  He tried to express his gratitude to one of the pilots, but the man could only spread his space-suited hands and grin back.

  When the transshipping was over, Jim found Jonas and Halpern busy assuring their headquarters that everything had gone right. Jonas lifted an inquiring eyebrow. "Well?"

  "We're still going to be too tight," Jim answered. "But there's another way to cut down on fuel. I read about it and then forgot it. I guess most people did, but it works theoretically and it might help."

  He drew out his pencil and began diagraming. "Instead of taking off directly for the Moon as we did before, we start with what looks like suicide! We head down directly for Earth, as if we meant to make an air landing there. We coast down, picking up speed, but not quite until we touch the atmosphere. Then, just as we start to swing around Earth, when we're about three hundred miles up, we blast out with as high an acceleration as we can stand."

  "And that saves fuel?" Halpern asked doubtfully. "Looks as if it would take more. You can't get something for nothing."

  "It isn't for nothing," Jim assured him. "It's based on the idea of getting back some of the work put into the job of bringing the fuel up. It's a thousand miles high now. By dropping back to a lower level, and then burning it up before we come back to this height—using its weight on the way down and not lifting it back—we have to recover the energy used to lift it in the first place. If we didn't it would violate all the laws of energy!"

  "How much saving?" Halpern asked. "Wait a minute. I want this stuff computed." He handed the rough figures Jim gave him to the aide. "Take this down to plotting. Get them to run a first-approximation on it at once!"

  Jonas was shaking his head, trying to understand, when the call came through. Halpern picked up the phone and listened. "How good are your figures, anyhow?" he finally asked. He nodded, and handed the phone to Jim.

  The results weren't quite as good as Jim had hoped. They would lose fuel in their change of orbit to fall back to Earth. But it still came out to a slight gain in the amount of power they could get from the fuel. Added to the Combine contribution, it would give them a bare four percent margin over their absolute needs. Even with that, there wasn't much room for maneuvering, but it was a risk that could be taken.

  Halpern was hard to convince, and Jonas harder. But at last they agreed, after a long conference with Gantry over the problem of piloting such a course.

  "Thank God, the men for the trip have already been picked," Jonas said. "And since most of them are from up here, and the others have been brought up for some time, they're ready. You'll be pretty short-handed with most of your scientific talent gone, Colonel."

  Halpern shrugged. Right now he'd probably be glad to have most of them out of his command.

  Jim was no longer permitted to work the ferry. This time Perez insisted that the crewmen who were going would have to be in top physical condition. Gantry and Poorhouse, the other pilots, were brought up while replacements took over. Jim saw that Lee Yeng would be copilot for Gantry, and he was glad. The other was a stranger to him.

  The rest and lack of work were probably good for them physically, and the men were winding up the tremendous job of finishing the ships on time. But Jim felt irritated and edgy watching others handle things. He saw the next pair of Combine ships come in, and then the final two. He'd written a formal note of thanks to Chiam, but it was still probably waiting clearance.

  Surprisingly, now that the trip was about to start, the World Congress had little to say. There was a curious lull in their affairs, as if something were brewing, but no sign of what. They again put in a request f
or Pierotti to go along, and President Andrews managed to agree before any objections could be raised. There was grumbling, but no real protest. The precedent had been set up on the survey ship. The United States had no cause to fear Pierotti's presence, anyhow.

  Jim was out early before takeoff time, with Nora beside him in her copilot's uniform. He went through the cargo ship, checking the stowage of supplies and the functioning of the machinery, while the little ferry was hauling the bigger ships around into the most favorable position. He had less men under his command than the other two pilots, but that didn't bother him. Ten would be enough in the passenger globe. He'd seen partial listings, but he could no longer remember who went with what ship.

  Then the men began to file out—or rather, the men and women. Science had become more and more a field for both sexes, and space had never gotten started with any real discrimination. It was inevitable that a good share of the passengers should be women. Terry Rodriguez looked longingly at them as he ferried them out, but he'd made his decision to stick with the station, and he was making no last-minute request to change. He checked the list, assigning men to their proper ships.

  The time was running shorter and shorter. Jim had counted the men roughly, but he couldn't be sure. He went to the radio to report. *Tm still short on my crew," he told Halpern. "Counting Nora and myself, there are only seven."

  "The others are coming. There have been some last-second changes," Halpern told him.

  Jim grunted. If they held things up now . . .

  Pierotti came out, and with him Jonas. "We're going on your ship," Jonas announced. "Maybe because we know you best."

  "We?" Jim asked. "Since when were you coming along, Mr. Jonas?"