Journey Into Space (7 page)

On the land masses not obscured by cloud we could quite easily make out the mountains, the forest areas, the deserts and even the larger rivers. But by the time the American continent had swung into view this was no longer possible and, except where the sun was rising over the high mountain ranges, causing them to throw long shadows across the plains, the Earth looked flat.

Now, some twenty hours after take-off, the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean filled the screen, the tiny islands with which it is studded looking like defects on the surface of a vast sheet of bright-blue glass.

As part of the globe was always in darkness it resembled a great moon at first quarter. Every time we took a fresh look at the retreating Earth, we could measure the distance it had rotated on its axis; fifteen degrees every hour. At first it had been fascinating to watch the countries of the hemisphere facing us pass from darkness into light and then disappear round the eastern limb of the globe. We pointed out to one another the large cities such as Johannesburg, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but as the hours dragged by, the game palled. Other thoughts intruded, like the ones Mitch was voicing now.

“Doesn’t Lemmy realise that without the radio we’re flying blind?”

“Oh, it’s not that bad, Mitch,” Jet’s calm voice replied. “We can figure out our approximate speed and position if it comes to it. Let’s give Lemmy a couple of hours more.” I felt much reassured by this news, but Mitch apparently did not.

“A couple of hours! If you ask me, he’ll never get that radio going. What happens if he doesn’t get through to Control at all?”

“We’ll wait a couple of days until our velocity has dropped to its minimum and then we’ll turn the ship over and go back.”

The effect of Jet’s remark was electrifying. The Australian sat up on his couch and, because he wasn’t wearing his boots, sailed upwards and came to an abrupt stop as his head hit the underside of the bunk above him. Under different circumstances, it would have been a funny incident but one look at Mitch’s face told me this was no moment for hilarity. Angrily he pushed himself down again and grabbed the rail to hold himself in position.

“Go back!” he shouted. “Go back? This ship’s not turning back. It started out to land on the Moon and it’s going to do it.”

Jet had been extremely patient. Over the last twenty hours he had given no sign that he resented Mitch’s irritability but now, it seemed, the Australian had gone too far. “You know as well as I do,” shouted Jet, “that to attempt to land without accurate details of our position and velocity would be suicide.”

“We’re not turning back,” repeated Mitch.

“But what if our speed is too high and we use up too much fuel landing on the Moon? How do we get off again?”

“We’ve got to take a chance.”

“Oh no,” said Jet conclusively. “Not that kind of chance. I’m not taking any unnecessary risks with the lives of this crew. If the radio isn’t working within forty-eight hours, we’re turning back. “

“We’re not turning back.”

“Am I the captain of this ship or are you?”

I thought for a moment that Mitch would strike Jet but while he was still thinking about it Jet cut in: “One more word out of you, Mitch, and I’ll put you under arrest.”

Mitch threw back his head and laughed. “That’s funny, that is. Where do you think you are--at sea? What are you going to do? Put me in irons?”

I thought it was time I intervened. I got off my bunk and stood between the two men. “Hey Mitch--Jet--break it up,” I told them. “You’re acting like a couple of school kids.”

Much to my surprise, Jet turned on me. “You stay out of this, Doc. If I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”

“But, Jet . . .”

He didn’t let me finish. “Seems we have a case of mutiny on our hands.”

“Mutiny? That’s great,” Mitch yelled.

“What else is it?” demanded Jet. “While I’m captain of this ship you’ll do as I say or take the consequences.”

That was enough. Mitch didn’t say any more. He just stared sullenly at Jet, breathing heavily. Now Jet saw he had control of the situation, he became calmer. “Right,” he said, “we’ll forget it. But if I decide to go back, we go back. Is that clear?”

Mitch nodded his head, almost imperceptibly.

“Now,” went on Jet, “get out the navigation tables. Then go over to the astrodome and start taking bearings. Maybe having something to do will make you feel better.”

It was not the time to say so but I’d been thinking that all along. Had Jet ordered Mitch to take our bearings in the first place, this somewhat ugly scene might well have been avoided. Mitch, still rather reluctantly, set to work.

Jet turned to me. “Doc, you give me a hand, will you?”

“Yes, Jet,” I said; “what at?”

“At getting a rough idea of our distance from Earth with the help of the radar. It won’t be all that accurate but it’ll be better than nothing.”

An hour later Jet took our findings across to where Mitch was still figuring. I moved over to Lemmy who, I knew, must be feeling more depressed than any of us, and certainly in need of a little encouragement.

“How you doing, Lemmy?” I said as I approached him.

“Oh, hullo, Doc,” he replied. “I’m putting it all together again now, and hoping.”

“Can I be of any help?”

“Yes, Doc. You can pass me a few things as I ask for them. But be careful--one touch and they go shooting all over the place. Talk about light and airy like a fairy.” I was pleased that, in spite of everything, Lemmy had not lost his good humour.

“I’ll be careful,” I told him.

“Then hand me that for a start,” he said. I passed a screwdriver over to him.

“Ta,” he said as he reached out for it. “And how’s the mutiny going?”

“Oh, they seem to have forgotten it now. They’ve got enough trouble on their hands, trying to work out our position.”

“Think they’ll do it, Doc?” he asked, seriously.

“I guess so. But it’ll take them some time. Our real hope is you, Lemmy--you and the radio.”

He didn’t reply to that but instead asked: “What made Mitch flare up like that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the thought that he might not get to the Moon after all, or maybe the cramped conditions and lack of gravity have something to do with it. Who can tell? Nobody has ever been in our circumstances before.”

The radio was now almost reassembled. Lemmy was just putting the final screws into place when a thought occurred to me. “Was the recorder switched on during that row, Lemmy?”

He paused for a moment. “Er--no, it wasn’t.”

“Pity!”

“Eh?”

“I’d have liked to have kept a record of every word spoken during this trip.”

“What for?”

“All manner of things can be concluded from the way men act and what they say, and a record of our reactions might help other crews in the future. There must be some reason why two men, perfectly stable on Earth, should jump at each other’s throats less than twenty-four hours after leaving it. There was no need for it, Lemmy. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m not jumping at anybody’s throat, Doc. Neither are you.”

“Not yet you aren’t, but watch it. There’s no knowing what might happen if you had nothing to do but sit and wait as Jet and Mitch were doing.”

Lemmy grunted. “Fat chance of that.” After a few minutes he looked up from his work and said: “Do you think we should turn back, Doc?”

“Yes,” I told him. “Unless you can get that radio working.”

“That’s what I think, too. Jet was right. Mitch ought to have known better.”

“Maybe. But that still doesn’t excuse Jet for losing his temper.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does.” He looked over his shoulder at where Mitch and Jet were busy with their tables. “Can they hear what we’re saying?”

“If they were listening they might. But at the moment they’re too busy to notice us.”

“There,” said Lemmy as he turned the last screw home. “Now, Doc, we’ll try again.”

“To raise Control?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think our chances are?”

“I don’t know. Three times I’ve pulled this stuff to pieces and three times I’ve put it all together again. And each time she should have worked; but even the emergency circuits don’t function. I can’t understand it. It’s got me worried, Doc.”

“Well, you can’t do more than your best.”

“But it makes me feel I’m letting the ship down.”

“You shouldn’t let it get you that way, Lemmy.”

“Well, it does. Now, let’s switch on and see if we get any juice through her.”

He pressed the switch and we both looked hopefully at the current indicators. They sprang to life. I almost shouted in my excitement. “It’s there.”

Lemmy was even more excited than I. He laughed as he said: “Yeah--we made it.” Then he took control of himself and said: “No, wait, don’t let’s get too excited. We’re not through to home yet.”

“Then give them a call, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “Try to raise them.”

Lemmy switched on the microphone and slowly and deliberately chanted: “Hullo, Control. Rocketship Luna calling Control. If you love me and can hear me, let’s hear from you. Over.”

Not a sound came from the loudspeaker.

Lemmy made a gesture of disgust with his hands. “Not a peep,” he said. “They should be receiving us, Doc, there’s bags of aerial current. They should hear us on Mars with this equipment. Why, if . . .”

He suddenly broke off to look up at the speaker, cock his head to one side and listen. Faintly, very faintly, from the gauze-covered circle came an odd sound.

“Hey,” I said, “what’s that?”

“I haven’t a clue,” he replied.

The sound we were hearing could never be adequately described in words. It began as a high-pitched, almost musical note. As it descended, it increased in volume and on its loudest and lowest note it paused, reverberated like the pedal note of a mighty organ in a deep canyon, and then faded out. But before it disappeared a second note was heard. Like its predecessor, it swooped bass-wards like an imitation of an acrobatic aircraft or the rush of water over a fall.

Then came a third note, a fourth, a fifth; more and more, too many to count, sliding down the whole range of audible frequencies, one just behind the other, each blending harmoniously with the next. A kaleidoscopic pattern of sound, swooping and descending with a slight lift at the end of each run, like the flight of a gull towards the sea.

The overall noise grew louder and Lemmy seemed deeply moved by it. He began to tremble slightly. He licked his lips and, with his eyes wide open, said: “It gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?”

“Haven’t you any idea what it is, Lemmy?”

“It sounds like music. But music I never heard before.”

It
was
like music--music of another age; mysterious, spine-chilling, unearthly. I put my ear close to the speaker. Somewhere within that surging, eerie symphony I thought I could detect, very faintly, a voice. “Can
you
hear a voice there?” I asked.

“I dunno, Doc,” Lemmy was extremely agitated. “I can’t make it out.”

By this time the sound filled the whole cabin. Jet and Mitch looked up from their work in surprise.

“Is the radio working now?” asked Jet, coming over to where Lemmy and I were standing.

“Can you get Control?” queried Mitch.

“She’s working all right, and that should be Control you’re hearing, but it isn’t.”

“Are you sure she’s on the right frequency, Lemmy?”

“Why shouldn’t she be? Impossible for her to drift off, with all those crystal stabilisers in there.”

The weird sound emanating from the amplifier had, until then, been loud, but almost as soon as Jet and Mitch reached us it began to fade. Just as Lemmy finished explaining about the crystals, there was a rapid upward surge of sound, culminating in a number of high-pitched, tremulous notes like the harmonics of a thousand violins playing in unison. Then silence.

Lemmy was perspiring. “It’s gone. Packed in again.” He was so disappointed his eyes filled with tears.

“Call them once more, Lemmy,” said Jet gently. “Give them one more try.”

There was a break in Lemmy’s voice as, for at least the hundredth time, he switched on the microphone. “Hullo, .Earth. Hullo, Control. Rocketship Luna calling. Can you hear us? Come in
please.
”
The last sentence he repeated in a tone of desperation. But less than two seconds later his expression changed to one of joy for from the radio came the clear, calm and familiar voice of Earth.

“Hullo, Luna. Hearing you loud and clear. Strength 4.5.”

“It’s them. We made it!” Lemmy was doing his best to hop from one foot to the other.

Jet pushed him to one side and reached for the mike switch. “Hullo, Control. This is Morgan. Can you still hear us?”

“Of course we can,” came back the reply. “We’ve been hearing you ever since take-off.”

“Eh?” Lemmy stopped his dance. His mouth dropped open in surprise. “You mean you’ve been hearing us all the time?” he asked incredulously.

“Except when you took the radio to pieces.” Mitch shot an enquiring glance in Lemmy’s direction. The voice of Control continued. “There must be something wrong with your receiving circuit.”

Mitch was about to speak but before he could get a word out Lemmy, as though appealing to Earth for support, yelled into the microphone: “But I couldn’t find anything wrong-- nothing. All I did was take the works to pieces and put them back together again. They’re just the same now as when we took off. I can’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense.” He stepped back from the table with a defiant look on his face.

“Well, you’re certainly functioning OK now, Luna. Stand by for full details of your position and velocity.”

Jet switched on the recorder. “Go ahead, Control. Standing by.”

We listened anxiously as the coveted information was slowly and precisely given to us, every figure repeated three times. We were 142,000 miles from Earth and our speed had dropped to 42,000 mph. This was very nearly what it would have been if the firing and cutting off of the second motor had been carried out by Control as originally intended and not by us. We all felt very pleased with ourselves. We became cheerful again, made jokes--and went out of our way to be polite to one another.