Journey Into Space (17 page)

“You’d better convert the couches to sitting position,” ordered Jet. “As soon as you’ve done that, train the televiewer on the surface directly below. Then between us we can select a good landing place--if there is one.”

By the time we had left the ice behind, our estimated height was only 20 miles and our speed 750 mph. We were now passing over the sea. After a few minutes there came another shout from Jet. “I can see land now,” he said, “way on ahead and slightly to port. I’m going to turn and head towards it.” Lemmy and I kept our eyes glued to the televiewer screen.

“Height, 25,000 feet,” said Mitch, “speed 180 miles per hour.”

“Check,” said Jet.

Soon the land came into view. It was mountainous. “Blimey,” said Lemmy, “doesn’t look very friendly, does it? About as good a spot for landing as the Swiss alps. Wonder if it’s all like this--a planet of mountains?”

“Do you see any end to them, Jet?” asked Mitch.

“No,” said Jet slowly, “I don’t. They stretch clear to the horizon.”

“Blast!”

“Some of those mountains must be 20,000 feet high at least,” said Lemmy in alarm. “We’ll hit ‘em for sure unless we cut in the motor and rise again.”

“It may come to that yet,” said Jet.

“But it would be such a waste of fuel,” protested Mitch.

“So what difference does it make?” argued Lemmy. “We’re never going to take off again anyway. Once we’ve landed, we’re stuck here forever. There’s nowhere else to go.”

We continued our glide in silence. There was nothing but rocks and mountains, not even a tree. “Perhaps,” said Lemmy, “trees don’t even grow here. Perhaps nothing grows here.”

Suddenly Jet announced that he thought we were coming to the end of the mountain range. Valleys were becoming deeper and the lower slopes of some of them had a greenish tinge.

“Is it grass, Doc?” asked Lemmy.

“I wouldn’t like to say from this height.”

“Could be a kind of moss or lichen,” suggested Mitch.

“Is that good?” asked Lemmy.

“Well, it shows
some
kind of life can exist here,” I said.

“It does?”

“But it may be the only life. We were told to expect lichen even on the Moon.”

“Oh.”

“But these mountains are high, Doc,” put in Mitch. “That’s about the only kind of life that could survive on them. Maybe there are more advanced forms lower down,”

“Always supposing there is a lower down,” said Lemmy.

“If you ask me, this planet is nothing but mountains and sea.”

But Lemmy was wrong, as Jet’s excited voice told us less than a minute later. “Hey, Mitch, Doc, Lemmy,” he called, “there’s a great stretch of flat country ahead.”

“What does it look like?” I enquired.

“I can only see it in little patches,” replied Jet. “It’s covered by cloud, stacks of it.”

“Then what makes you so sure the country under there is flat?” Lemmy wanted to know.

“If it wasn’t, I’d see the mountains jutting up through the cloud. If there’s anywhere we can land, I think it’s there.”

“Well, if there’s any chance,” said Mitch, “so far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.”

“Right,” said Jet; “here we go.”

Soon the country that Jet had been describing was in full view on the televiewer screen. It was level all right, and we could easily have made a landing if the whole area had not been covered with forest. But Jet had not given up yet. Visibility wasn’t all that good and the cloud was thicker and lower than he’d expected, but he thought he could keep under it without hitting the ground. Our height was 1000 ft. Our speed, 90 mph.

We waited, over-optimistically, perhaps, for Jet’s next report. “It’s no good,” he said, “nothing but trees. We’ll have to rise again. Get above this cloud and find somewhere else.”

Mitch was preparing to cut in the motor when Jet shouted, “Wait, hold on a minute. There’s a gap way ahead, like a great area of the forest has been cleared--and cultivated.”

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“It’s true, Doc, and there’s a river in front of us, running at right angles to our line of flight.”

“Can you see a place to land?” said Mitch impatiently.

“And now it’s raining,” Jet went on cheerfully, “absolutely teeming down.”

“Oh, blimey!” said Lemmy.

Mitch repeated his question. “Yes, there are plenty of places,” said Jet, “but we’re going too fast at the moment. I’ll have to circle and keep circling until we’ve slowed down.”

Slowly but surely we descended. Soon our speed was only 70 mph and Jet was straightening up ready for the run in.

By now it was raining bucketfuls and visibility was almost down to zero.

“Take it easy,” advised Mitch. “We don’t want to hit anything, not at this stage.”

“Running in now,” came back the pilot’s reply. Height was 500 ft.

“You’d better brace yourselves,” Jet warned. “Get into your chairs.” Jet now began to read off his altimeter to us. “300--200--100--nearly there. Stand by.” A pause, then: “Here it comes.” Jet put the nose of the gliding rocket down to increase speed a little, then pulled back the stick, and eased her up slightly in the hope of making a pancake landing. But the undercarriage which had been put out when we first began to descend struck the ground too hard. There was a crump, a lurch, and we bounced off again. Jet apologised and told us to get ready for the second try.

“Touching down--now.”

There was a jolt as we hit the ground, the ship rolled for a few yards, then jolted again as the fore-wheel made contact with the surface. At the point of impact, we must have been travelling at only 50 mph, but in spite of this I was thrown forward in my .chair, the safety straps cutting into my stomach rather painfully. Then the ship shuddered to a standstill and we were down, safe and in one piece.

“Well, we’ve made it,” said Lemmy. “We’re here.”

“Yes,” I told him. “Heaven knows where we are, but we’re here.”

“You all right back there?” came Jet’s voice. “Sorry for the bump but it was no concrete runway we landed on.”

“We’re fine, Jet,” said Mitch, who was undoing his safety strap, “and I’m coming up to the cabin to take a look out.”

“Come on then,” said Jet, “not that you can see much in all this rain.”

To get to the pilot’s cabin now we had to go forward, for what had been one wall of our cabin was now the roof, and the roof a wall. It was certainly raining, raining as heavily as in a tropical monsoon.

“ ‘Strewth,” said Lemmy, “d’you suppose it always rains like this here?”

“How should I know?” said Jet, “I’m a stranger in these parts.”

“Well,” I said, “it only goes to prove that life on other planets must be fundamentally the same as on Earth--green vegetation, the river, clouds, rain.”

“Just like home, isn’t it?” said Lemmy with forced cheerfulness, “only much wetter.”

“I wonder if there’s any kind of animal life?” asked Jet.

“There must be,” said Mitch. “Those plots of vegetation are too regular, too uniform to grow that way naturally.”

“Are you suggesting some kind of animal planted them?” queried Jet.

“Well, if they did,” I said, “where are they? Where are their houses--their cities, if they have any?”

“Maybe,” conjectured Lemmy, “their homes are miles from here and they travel by boat along the river.”

“A good guess,” said Jet, “but wide of the mark I’m sure.”

“Only trying to help.”

“Do you think that stuff out there is good to eat?” I asked. “Our food isn’t going to last forever.”

“Nor our drink,” said Lemmy. “Can we drink that water or will it poison us?”

“Can we breathe the air?” said Mitch. “Is it air?”

“It may not even be safe to step outside the ship,” said Lemmy slowly.

“Gentleman,” said Jet, “I don’t know where we are, what planet this we’ve landed on, or in what part of the Universe it is located, but the fact remains it looks as though we’re to be here till the end of our days, and if we remain in the ship, our days are numbered at less than five.”

“And if we step outside,” said Lemmy, “we may not live five minutes.”

“But if there
is
air out there,” I suggested, “and food and water . . .”

Mitch interrupted me. “Someone will have to go out there and try it,” he said.

“Go out?” said Lemmy. “Isn’t there some other way?”

“What?”

“But whoever goes . . .” Lemmy paused, thought for a moment and then went on: “No, there’s no other way that I can think of.”

“We’ll draw lots for it,” said Jet.

“And how will we get out?” I asked.

“Through the airlock.”

“But the moment we open the main door, whatever atmosphere is out there will rush in and fill up the vacuum. And the next time we use the airlock it will enter the ship and, if it’s poisonous . . .”

“If it is poisonous,” broke in Mitch, “we won’t be using the airlock again anyway. Whoever’s left in won’t be wanting to go out.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Lemmy. “I think I’d rather be poisoned out there and get it over with than die of suffocation in here.”

“All right,” said Jet. “Let’s get back into the main cabin. We’ll draw lots.”

The task fell to Lemmy. “First time I’ve won a draw in my life,” he said, “and it has to be this.” Immediately Jet volunteered to take his place but the radio operator wouldn’t hear of it.

Lemmy put on his space suit, we opened up the hatch and he descended into the airlock below. The hatch was then closed and the air exhausted. “All right, Doc,” said Lemmy, “open the door and let’s get out of here.”

“Take it easy,” said Jet to me. “Just ease the main door enough to break the vacuum. Let that air or whatever it is out there come in as slowly as possible.”

“Yes, Jet,” I said. “Main door opening.”

“Standing by,” said Lemmy.

“How do you feel?” asked Jet anxiously.

“Lonely,” came the small, metallic voice.

The pressure reached maximum.

“Hey!” said Lemmy. “My suit--it’s gone all flabby.”

“It will,” said Jet. “As the air or whatever it is comes in from outside, it will equalise the pressure.”

“It’ll be a lot easier to move anyway,” said the Cockney.

“She must be full now,” said Mitch.

Lemmy heard him. “Then open the door properly,” he said. “Let me get out there and get this over with.”

I opened it, then pressed the button which operated the small ladder leading from the main door down to the ground. We couldn’t see Lemmy now, of course, but we heard him describing his progress. “Here I go,” he said. “I’ll go round to the front so you can all see me through the pilot’s window.”

Soon he was making his way through the wet grass. “How is it to walk?” asked Mitch.

“It’s not walking that worries me, it’s how long I’m going to be able to. Now going round to the nose of the ship.”

We moved over to the pilot’s cabin and crowded into the tiny compartment. “Hello, Lemmy,” Jet told him, “we can see you now. You all right?”

“I’ll tell you in just a few minutes,” he said, as he took up a position about fifty yards in front of us. “I know one thing.”

“What?” asked Jet.

“I should have brought an umbrella. I’m going to get my hair wet when I take my helmet off.”

“Never mind that,” said Jet. “Remember what we told you. Loosen your helmet first. If you feel no ill effects, lift it slightly, take a shallow breath and, if that’s OK, take a bigger one.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then fasten your helmet, increase your oxygen supply and breathe deeply.”

“Right,” said Lemmy, “here I go. Unfastening helmet.” He raised his hands and began to unloosen the screws at the neck. “Helmet loose,” he reported. There was a pause.

“Well, Lemmy,” said Jet, “can you breathe?”

There was another pause while we waited for Lemmy’s answer. Finally, after what seemed an age, it came. “Sorry, Jet, I wasn’t trying; I was holding my breath. But I’ll do it this time. Lifting helmet--now.”

We heard him take a short breath and expel it rapidly.

“Now,” said Jet, “lower your helmet, quick.”

“Too late,” came the retort, “it’s lowered.”

“Then how do you feel?”

“All right, up to now anyway.”

“You’re sure?”

“It’s air,” broke in Mitch, “it must be air.”

“The effects might be delayed,” I cautioned him.

“I’ll have another go now,” said Lemmy. “Take a deeper breath this time.”

We saw him lift his helmet from the front, heard him breathe in. “Ha,” he said, relief in his voice, “it feels all right.”

“Thank God for that,” said Jet. “No peculiar sensations, Lemmy?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. In fact I think I’ll take my helmet right off.”

“No, don’t,” warned Jet, but it was too late. Lemmy had already removed it and was holding it in his hand. We heard him breathing in and out deeply, then he began to laugh, hysterically. “I can breathe,” he said, “without a helmet. I can breathe--the first good, clean breath of fresh air for nearly a month.” He began to laugh louder. “Air,” he said, “air--beautiful air.”

“Strewth,” said Mitch, “what’s come over him? He’s dancing.” And sure enough he was.

“The oxygen content must be too high,” I suggested. “It’s making him feel lively.”

“Lemmy,” called Jet, “put your helmet on. Do you hear?” But Lemmy ignored Jet’s pleas and went on laughing and dancing. Then he began to take his suit off. Jet was now getting desperate. “It must be air,” he said; “but what on earth is Lemmy doing?”

Lemmy, his ear-piece still attached to his head, replied for himself. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, “that’s what.”

“A shower?” I doubted my ears.

“Yes, in the rain. Don’t you realise it’s nearly a month since we had a proper bath?”

“But isn’t it cold out there, Lemmy?” I asked him.

“I wouldn’t know. To me it feels like a warm spring day on Earth, and now I’m here I’m going to make the best of it. Why don’t you come in? The water’s lovely.”

We looked at each other in amazement.

“Yes, Jet,” I said finally, “why don’t we? Either it’s all right or it isn’t and I wouldn’t mind standing in that rain myself. In fact, the idea appeals to me very much.”