Mission to the Moon

by Lester Del Rey

  Poorhouse was having trouble following him closely enough, but the pilot seemed to get himself under control, and the Oberth began edging toward the other ships. Gantry's Hohmann seemed not to have come an inch closer or further during the whole descent.

  Jim felt one of the passengers behind him, staring over his shoulder at the screen. He couldn't look back to see what fool had unbuckled the seat straps in such circumstances. He jerked his elbow back viciously. There was a pained gasp and the clutching pressure on his shoulder was suddenly gone.

  There was the brief sound of a scuffle, and then Pierotti's voice sounded in low, quick words. "Okay, Jim. Got him strapped down!"

  Jim's sudden anger subsided almost as quickly as it had come. He couldn't afford the emotion. And he couldn't entirely blame whoever it had been. There was an almost hypnotic fascination to the rugged harshness below, and a certain macabre beauty.

  At ten miles, the smooth section still seemed fairly safe. Jim noticed now that there was a break in the ground beyond it, where they might be able to base their huts safely. He began edging over a trifle. The cargo ship would have to land close enough for the cranes to swing the sections into place without too much hauling. But he couldn't come too close to the crevasse for fear the ground might crumble under the weight of the ship. About thirty feet from the edge would probably be best, leaving room beyond for the other two.

  He hadn't called corrections, but Poorhouse started to imitate his maneuver. Gantry said something harshly, and the other pilot stopped his creep toward the edge. The Hohmann was moving down steadily, now letting Jim slip away for the first time. It wasn't hard to see why Gantry had won over his difficulties. The man's nerves were chilled steel and his thoughts were always ahead of the situation.

  At five miles, they were moving fairly slowly. But it was Jim's final chance to change his mind. He caught a quick view of Freddy's ship, more than four miles away. It was tough, but there was nothing he could do to improve the situation. The ground directly below still looked like the best spot. Even from this height, it seemed as smooth as if it had been filled in.

  Maybe it had been, Jim realized. He'd heard that fine dust could creep slowly under the pull of gravity, even without a wind to blow. If the section down there were smooth only because of such dust moving to fill the holes and cover irregularities, the legs of the ship would sink into it and might hit anything! There would be no way of knowing the depth, either. If they sank too far, the dust would make it impossible to move around outside the ship, even if the jets from the rockets blew it out of the way at first.

  He had a picture of a deep split in the ground, filled in to fifty or a hundred feet with dust. But he put it out of his mind. It wasn't logical that there could be that much dust in any one spot on a world without winds to blow it into the hollows from a large surrounding area.

  He called a quick warning of his suspicions into the microphone. They would have to come down slowly, unless there was some way of seeing what lay on the surface. Those last few feet would be even worse than he had thought. It was probably all solid rock, but they couldn't take chances.

  At a mile up, Gantry grunted. "No dust. Cracks!"

  Jim spotted the cracks then; there could have been no such signs if there had been dust to fill them in. They were fine lines, like the cracks in sun-baked mud. They probably had been caused by the changing heat and cold expanding and contracting the ground. None of them seemed wide enough to permit the big feet of the landing legs to sink, however.

  Near the sharp break where Jim was heading, the cracks seemed thicker. He wondered whether it meant that the ledge there was rotten and ready to break apart completely under the ship. But it was too late to change now. Poorhouse was fairly close on the other side, without too much room for edging back. Jim had picked his spot as well as he could. From now on, he could only hope for reasonable luck. Most of the supplies would still be good, even if the ledge crumbled and threw the cargo ship over; there were only ten in the total crew of fifty here, and the ship hadn't been meant to take off into space again, anyhow. He was the logical one to risk it.

  The low-range altimeter registered about a thousand feet. Jim snapped a quick look at the fuel gauge near it, remembering that he had no reserve tanks. In an emergency, the other two ships might draw on their return tanks. He had none. The needle registered near the bottom of the scale, but there seemed to be enough fuel for the landing.

  Then they were five hundred feet up. Jim took a last look at the screen. He was positioned as well as he could be, with Poorhouse and Gantry spread out at about the right spacing.

  The blast from the rocket hit the ground then, ending all visibility. That was something he'd expected, but it brought a tight knot into his stomach, all the same. The last few hundred feet—the trickiest ones-had to be handled blind. There was no way of looking through the hot splashing flame of his own exhaust as it bounced off the ground.

  He kept his eyes on the altimeter with quick side glances at the screens that showed some indications of the ground beyond. The needle on the meter went down to fifty feet, and then was useless as the blast kicked up enough solid matter to trigger it. Twenty feet more, maybe.

  The ship seemed to hover, but he knew it was still falling. He juggled the control, trying to sense the position of the ship and waiting for the first faint contact with the feeler leg. He'd have to react instantly to correct, if it failed to cut the blast automatically. And it seemed impossible that anything could stand the heat of that splashing exhaust.

  The ship pitched faintly, and then again. He was so low that the surface beneath was affecting the blast, driving it up against the ship and acting like a strong wind under him.

  But it gave him a clearer idea of his height. He eased up, with every nerve in his body straining to feel and read the faintest touch as he cut the blast slightly.

  He was hardly moving. He eased up again, beginning to worry that he'd reached minimum speed too high above the ground.

  Then a red light sprang up in front of him. The feeler leg had touched!

  Abruptly, the blast cut off, just as he was about to snap it off manually. The feeler leg had worked. Now the springs in the landing legs coupled with the shock absorbers to soak up the last few bits of speed the ship possessed.

  The Goddard sank another foot, bounced up slowly for an inch or so, and settled down to a firm, level position!

  Chapter 19

  Rescue Party

  I

  hrough the observation dome Jim could see the other two ships, both resting solidly on the rock below them. A quick check by radio showed no sign of injury to men or machines; even the fuel consumption had been satisfactory.

  "Good." Gantry's voice showed quiet approval. "A fine job, Jim. I expected it."

  His voice was muffled as he issued orders to his own crew; then he turned back to the microphone. "I'm having the tractor pulled out at once by its driver. Nobody else is to leave the ship until I give out work orders. Dr. Perez, Nora—you'll form a rescue party under Dr. Charkejian, since he probably knows lunar conditions best. Leave at once, and keep radio contact with Poorhouse. No needless risks. Jim, suppose you look over the terrain here while I report to Earth."

  Jim had taken it for granted that he would help in the rescue attempt, but he realized Gantry had been right in his assignments. There was still no radio contact with the wrecked ferry as he buckled on his suit and headed outside, where Nora and the others were carrying a stretcher and supplies out to the little tractor. The machine looked like a small caterpillar-treaded tank with a plastic bubble on top, and it spouted out a cloud of steam as it crawled off at a few miles an hour.

  Their chances for a rescue didn't look good. At this distance, there should have been some answer to their radio signals. Jim had been hoping that Mark might have joined Freddy, if he'd lived. The ferry was in better condition, and it was also better located for a rescue. Mark would have realized that and headed there. Now the lack of
any response seemed to indicate the worst for both of them.

  Jim tried to put the worry out of his mind and concentrate on his job. The ground around the ships seemed to be a shelf of solid rock, with only small shallow cracks. He nodded in satisfaction, and moved on to the crevasse he'd spotted. It began thirty feet from his ship. The rocky shelf seemed to have split apart, leaving a fissure nearly a hundred feet deep and three times as wide. At the bottom, the floor was fairly smooth, and there was even a slope diat might be used for a road down it. Best of all, the rock was undercut near the bottom. It would offer fairly good shelter for their base, if it proved safe.

  He studied the cargo ship. They'd have to guy the other side of it down to keep it from tipping, but the crane would be able to reach over into the fissure.

  In the end, only the frame and base would be left of the ship, to mount the solar mirror for power and the antenna for contact with Earth. Nearly all the rest would be salvaged to build and equip the living quarters. Jim hated losing his only command, but it had always been planned that way.

  He started back to report, just as he saw Gantry heading toward the airlock of the Goddard. Jim flicked on his personal radio. "Freddy? Or Mark?"

  "No news yet," Gantry told him. "We're getting a lot of news from Earth, but most of it is politics." He shook his head, as if puzzled, and then smiled. "Don't worry about losing your ship, Jim. Poorhouse is third pilot, so you'll take over on the way back, no matter what happens. That was a perfect job you did. Now, what about conditions here?"

  Jim began reporting as they filed through the airlock of the cargo ship and toward the control cabin.

  "It's better than we expected from what we saw," Gantry decided when Jim had finished. "I'll have a couple of men test the edge of the fissure. Then we'll begin working on quarters. With only six weeks here to explore a whole world, we can't waste much time."

  They reached the cabin, where Pierotti and Jonas were pressed close to the radio that was broadcasting from the relay station, with everyone else clumped around it tightly. There was something about the new plans under the internationalized setup, and Gantry stopped to listen. Then, before Jim could make sense of it, the interconnecting radio sounded, and Gantry reached for it, signaling for the other broadcast to be cut.

  "Just made contact with the tractor again," Poor-house reported. "They're near the ferry now. From what they can see, the airlock is buried and there's no way for them to break in. They don't have picks with them."

  "All right, I'll send them from here," Gantry answered. He swung back to face Jim. "You're elected. Pick someone else, and get going. It's faster than having the tractor come back."

  Jim nodded toward Jonas, and the older man was in his suit by the time the picks had been located and unpacked. The two started out at a trot that was easy to maintain in this low gravity, following the trail of the tractor. There was enough dust and small rubble to mark it, and it saved time to follow where Charke-jian had already found a way.

  "If the lock's sealed, how could Mark reach the boy?" Jonas asked suddenly.

  Jim had been wondering about the same thing.

  There was only one possible answer, and he didn't like it. It was hard to give up all hope.

  The ground wasn't as rough as it had looked from the ship, or at least there was more clear space between the harsh, jagged-edged rocks. And it wasn't the sharp blacks and whites it had seemed. At closer view, there were all colors in the rocks, and shadings of light where the reflections illuminated the shadows. But it was tricky, and travel took most of their attention. There were fissures and small cracks everywhere. Without the erosion of rain and wind, the raw bones of the satellite had never been worn smooth, and the sharp lines of light and shadow made it seem even rougher.

  They reached the top of the roughest section. Jonas pointed suddenly, and Jim turned to follow his motion.

  Here, in a detour the tractor had taken to find better going, they were no more than a mile from Mark's ship. It stood across an impassable maze of cuts and rocky heights, at the top of another small peak. Jim swung the binoculars to his eyes, focusing them against his helmet visor, and then gasped.

  There wasn't much left of the former third stage. Mark had apparently found the levelest section in a bad spot, but no place had been safe. The ship must have come down too fast, dropping on its motors and tanks. A jagged rock had cut through the whole lower section and through what was left of the hull, splitting the framework apart as if a wedge had been driven in. Girders were twisted and bent, and the control cabin was gaping open. It didn't need the dangling airlock door to show that there was no air in the ship, nor any chance of a man living in it.

  But hanging outside was a rope ladder that led down to the surface. That could have only been unrolled after the ship had landed. It seemed impossible that Mark could have survived, but he must have.

  "His only chance was at the ferry boat with Freddy," Jim decided, but there was little hope in his voice. He turned, dropping the binoculars back into their pouch, and headed up the trail, Jonas beside him.

  Then they were suddenly around a curve and almost at the other ship.

  The ferry must have tipped in landing, and had buried part of the control sphere, covering the airlock. Jim had been expecting that. But he hadn't expected the big metal sheet that had been bent to form a crude sled and now stood beside the little ship. On it was piled a miscellaneous collection of supplies—food, water, small oxygen tanks, and other things.

  Nora had come up to Jim, taking one of the picks. "That's right," she said dully. "Mark made it here. He brought two big oxygen tanks, too, and coupled them to the valves on the ferry. But he couldn't get in."

  "What about Freddy?" Jonas asked her.

  She shrugged helplessly. "We don't know. No answer."

  They fell to work on the rocks and rubble around the lock. It was mostly soft stuff that gave quickly to the picks. The others shoveled it aside as Jim and Nora dug. They had to go deep enough to get under the lock, with enough room to swing it open. It was back-breaking work, particularly since too much effort tended to make them bounce from the surface.

  But finally Jim's pick dragged out a bigger lump of rock, and he could swing the outer part of the lock open. There was barely room enough for him to crowd in behind Perez and Nora.

  Jim snapped his helmet open briefly as the inner lock opened. The air was foul, but it was breathable, apparently. Then he saw Freddy.

  The boy lay stretched out on the lower part of the control room. He seemed to have shrunken until the bones stood out from his skin, and his lips were cracked. If he were breathing, it was too shallow to show.

  Perez twisted the valve on the air supply. They could waste it now, and it cleared some of the thickness out. He lifted one of the thin arms and nodded. "Shock. Fix the plasma while I work on him." He ran a needle into the thin arm and injected something quickly, turning to prepare something else.

  "He's alive?" Jim asked.

  "I haven't time to find out," Perez answered. "When something looks like this kind of shock reaction, it's the same as death unless you get antishock stuff into him fast. Ah!"

  He inserted the needle while Nora held up the plasma bottle.

  Abruptly the chest quivered and a darkened tongue came out to lick across the cracked lips. Perez moistened a sponge and added something to it before placing it over the boy's mouth. "Thirst and partial starvation," he said. "That and fright. Give me a hand getting a suit on him, Jim."

  Apparently the oxygen Mark must have coupled into the lines had been enough. But Freddy hadn't known how to manage his food and water, from the looks of the place.

  "Clock's ruined," Perez said suddenly.

  Jim looked, and he could see that the chronometer had apparently been ruined in the landing. Then it hit him. Freddy had been here with no way to tell time for all the days of waiting! He must have thought the rescue overdue a hundred times. He had a reason for going somewhat mad with hysterical
fear, eventually—and the evidence here indicated such hysteria. Locked in, helpless, and with no idea of how long . . .

  "Will he live now, do you think?"

  Perez shook his head. "I don't know. That was a pretty advanced case of shock—the kind a man goes into before death. Of course, with these new drugs there's a chance. Wait, don't close the suit yet."

  There was more plasma to be injected, as well as an intravenous of something else. Perez timed it carefully, and finally fed Freddy a small quantity of water.

  That brought more reaction than they had expected. The eyes flickered open and Freddy's mouth worked painfully. "Jim!" he gasped. Something that might have been meant for a smile touched his lips, and then he was unconscious again.

  "All right, zip him up," Perez ordered. He was putting supplies away hastily. "At least his mind seems clear. It gives us a fifty-fifty chance."

  Nora and Charkejian took the stretcher and carried Freddy to the tractor, while the driver called the ships. She looked inquiringly at Jim, but he shook his head. There wasn't room on the tractor for him and Jonas. "I've got to see what happened to Mark," Jim told her.

  She nodded reluctantly and climbed onto the tractor, leaving him alone with Jonas.

  The older man put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't count on anything," he warned.

  The warning wasn't needed. Jim could recognize that Mark's time must have run out long before. The oxygen tanks that were coupled to the ferry and those abandoned on the sled showed that Mark hadn't expected to five.

  Too many feet had ruined any trail near the ferry, but he finally found signs further on, heading back into the rocky ground toward the wreck of the pilot's ship. Silently, Jim and Jonas followed them. The trail led on for a mile, and then it began heading up toward the top of one of the little peaks, to disappear among the harder rock. But the destination was plain by then.