Journey Into Space (8 page)

When Control’s long recitation of facts and figures had ended and the operator’s recorded voice had been played back to him for final check, our normal working routine went into action.

Watches were divided into four hours per man. Jet took the first, Mitch the second, then me and finally, to enable him to get a long period of sleep without interruption, Lemmy. Leaving Jet at the control table, the rest of us retired to our bunks. The last thing of which I was aware was Jet replaying the log to himself via the reproduction earpiece and copying down the figures for comparison with the estimated flight schedule we had brought with us.

Ten hours later we were having our first leisurely meal together. Lemmy, purely for the novelty of the experience, had taken his on the ceiling, his rations having been floated up to him by gentle pushes. From his lofty position he kept up an almost constant flow of small talk. “Push me up a banana, will you, Doc? Ta.”

“Lemmy, do you always intend to take your meals upside down on the ceiling?” Jet asked him.

“What difference does it make? It all goes down, or should I say ‘up’, just the same.”

“But it looks so undignified.”

“Great idea for cocktail parties though. Think of the room it saves.”

“Anything more, Lemmy?” I asked.

“No thanks, Doc. I’ve about eaten my fill.”

“Then push your empties down and I’ll stow them away.”

“How about a little after dinner music?” came the voice from above.

“Oh, not that, Lemmy,” protested Mitch.

“Got to do something to pass the time.”

It had been agreed that each man could bring from Earth some purely personal object or objects weighing not more than one pound. I had brought my journal and, at every opportunity, filled its pages with details of our life within the confined space of the ship and our individual reactions to it. Both Jet and Mitch had brought a book apiece; Mitch, a technical treatise on atomic power and Jet, a well-worn copy of a fictional work.

Lemmy had no literary aspirations. He had brought a mouth-organ and during his off-duty periods treated us to selections from his repertoire. Unfortunately it wasn’t very large; unfortunately, too, in our cramped quarters there was no escaping it. At the moment the cabin resounded to the echoes of Lemmy’s favourite item, “Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road.” He was also very adept at playing Hebrew dances.

We resigned ourselves to suffer in silence. Even Mitch refrained from repeating his objection for, now that we were in radio contact with Earth again, Lemmy was the hero of the hour. But we had endured only a few bars of the old Cockney ballad when it was brought to an abrupt close by a sound like the sharp report of a heavy-bore rifle. It was followed, within a fraction of a second, by the shriek of the klaxon horn which told us we had been struck by a meteor.

We had been drilled for this moment for months. Jet had his drinking straw to his lips, finishing the last of his cold tea. His immediate reaction was to ‘drop everything’--and he did. Down on Earth his bottle would have gone crashing to the floor. But not here. It remained where it was, poised in the air.

“Emergency! Action stations!” Jet yelled.

We needed no second bidding. In fact Mitch and I were up on our feet before he got the order out.

“Blimey!” It was Lemmy. “Emergency, and me upside down on the ceiling.”

“The space suits!” Jet shouted up at him.

“Don’t panic,” he replied. “I’m on my way.”

I half ran, half floated across to my control panel. There I checked the air pressure and found, to my great relief, that it was constant. At least the ship’s inner shell had not been holed. I announced the fact to Jet.

“The meteor bumper must have worked,” yelled Mitch above the noise of the klaxon.

“That we’ll see. Put your suits on anyway,” said Jet, taking his from Lemmy who was now handing them round. “Put on your helmets, too, but don’t fasten them.”

I stayed at my post by the air pressure indicator, ready to press the siren should the needle begin to waver.

Jet turned off the shrieking buzzer. Then Mitch, from his place at the engineering panel, announced: “Fuel tanks and motor seem to be intact. No damage there, according to the board.”

“Good. Right, Lemmy. Call up base. Report this to Control immediately.”

“Yes, Jet.”

Fifteen minutes later we were still at our posts but none of the indicators gave us any sign that the ship had suffered any serious damage. An hour later vigilance was relaxed, but it was essential to know what damage, however slight, the ship had sustained. There was only one way to find out and that was to go outside and look.

 “Outside?” asked Lemmy. “Into--
nothing?
”

“Only one of us needs to--I’ll go,” said Jet.

“No, let me,” said Mitch.

I tried to put my spoke in. “Oh no, Mitch, this is my job. If anything should go wrong, should the suits break down or anything unforeseen happen, you are of far more importance to the crew than I.”

“Do you mean that whoever goes out there has a chance of not coming back again?” Lemmy swallowed.

“It’s possible, Lemmy. It will be the first time any man has ever been out there--in true space. His life will depend principally on the efficiency of the suit he’s wearing. And as I designed these suits,” I turned to Jet, “it follows that I should be the one to put them to the test.” “You tested them on Earth, Doc, didn’t you?”

“Of course, as far as I could. But this will be different, Jet--the real thing.”

The fact was that, with the exception of Lemmy, we were all itching to go outside. Jet decided to draw lots for it, Lemmy included. Jet won.

Still wearing our suits, but without helmets, we prepared to let him out of the cabin, into the airlock and through the main door.

Air was first let into the lock to fill up the vacuum. It rushed in with a loud hiss that could be heard through the cabin floor. Next the hatchway was opened and, when it had reached full aperture, Jet descended the ladder into the small, airtight compartment below. He looked up at the three of us glancing down at him and grinned. “All right, Doc,” he said. “Close the hatch.”

I closed her and Jet was lost to view. Lemmy had already turned on the ship’s intercom radio that would keep us in touch with Jet while he was outside. Soon we heard the rattle of his throat mike as he switched it on.

“Over to intercom,” said his voice, now coming from the loudspeaker. “Fastening helmet.”

“Hearing you loud and clear,” said Lemmy.

“Helmet fastened. Exhaust the lock.”

There was a click of relays and a long, sustained hiss of air as the airlock slowly emptied.

“Suit now inflating,” came Jet’s voice.

“Air pressure zero,” I announced.

“Then open the door and turn me loose.” It opened, the electric motors filling the cabin with a deep, musical hum. When it ceased we heard, quite distinctly, an exclamation of surprise.

“What is it, Jet--something wrong?” asked Mitch.

“It’s more beautiful than I ever dreamed.”

“What is?”

“The stars. Millions upon millions of them.” His voice now took on a matter-of-fact tone. “Am now leaving door and walking up side of ship. I’ll make a complete circuit.”

“How’s the suit, Jet?” I asked him.

“Fine, Doc, fine. More comfortable than I’d dared to hope. Now hitching safety line and walking towards nose.”

I could imagine him out there, walking up the side of the ship like a fly up a wall. To him ‘down’ was towards his feet--whatever part of the ship he might be. If, by any mischance, his magnetic boots failed and he went drifting off into the void, his safety line would hold and enable him to pull himself back.

“Any sign of where the meteor hit us?” It was Mitch.

“No, not yet.”

“Ask him if he can see the Earth,” prompted Lemmy.

“Not now,” Mitch replied. “One thing at a time. Finding the point of impact is more important.”

But Jet had already found it. The meteor had struck us near the ship’s nose. Apparently it must have been a very small one--minute--for only a tiny part of the steel outer casing had vaporised. We thanked our lucky stars it hadn’t been larger.

We all now expected Jet to make his way back to the airlock and return to the cabin. But no. “You must come out here, all of you,” he said with bated breath. “This is something you’ve got to see.”

“We can’t all go,” Mitch told him. “Somebody must stay to work the airlock.”

In spite of my great desire to join Jet outside the ship, I volunteered to remain behind, asking, by way of compensation, that I should be the first to step down on the surface of the Moon. My request was granted. A few moments later Mitch and Lemmy were outside with Jet and I could hear their excited voices as they pointed out to one another the sights of the Universe.

“Did you ever see so many stars? So many different colours, too. And so small and bright,” said Lemmy. “How fast are we going, Jet?”

“About 2000 miles an hour.”

“We don’t seem to be moving at all.”

“Take a look at the Moon, Lemmy. Even from this distance you can see the mountains and craters on her.”

“How far away is she now?”

“At a rough guess I’d say about a hundred thousand miles.”

“Oh. No distance at all. A fourpenny ‘bus ride.”

“If it’s a sight you want to see, take a look at the Earth.” Mitch had joined the conversation now. “You can make out the African continent quite easily and the reflection from the ice cap is almost too brilliant to look at.”

“If we never get to the Moon,” said Jet, “the trip will have been worth it--just for this.”

“Jet,” said Lemmy, “I’m going for a walk down under.”

“Then be sure your safety line is secure. We don’t want you drifting off.”

“Don’t worry, boy. I don’t aim to leave this ship yet. You must come out here, Doc, you’d enjoy it. Maybe when I’ve taken my constitutional I’ll come in and you can come out.”

“Thanks, Lemmy,” I told him. “I’d like to.”

I visualized them out there, stuck to the hull of the rocket; Jet and Mitch standing on one side and Lemmy walking away from them down to the opposite side.

Lemmy was still talking, half to me, half to himself. “If only Becky could see me now, she wouldn’t know if I was on my head or my heels--any more than I do. Do you know, Doc ...” He paused. “Huh?” he said, as though Jet or Mitch had spoken, “what’s that?” But neither of them had said a word and I certainly hadn’t as I’d been listening to Lemmy. But he had heard something for he went on: “There it is again--that funny music.”

I listened intently but could hear nothing. “What is it, Lemmy?” I asked him. “What can you hear?”

He didn’t reply but continued talking to himself. “There it is again.” He began to sound alarmed. “And getting louder. Doc, can you hear me? Why don’t you answer?”

“I
am
answering you, Lemmy--what is it?” But although I could hear Lemmy all right, he obviously couldn’t hear me. Urgently he called Jet, but didn’t hear when he replied either. Now that I knew Jet was trying to contact him, I shut up. Too many voices would only have confused the issue.

But Lemmy wasn’t hearing anybody. And with me in the Cabin and Jet and Mitch on the far side of the ship, nobody could see him or have any way of finding out what was wrong.

The Cockney was near to panic now. He yelled for Jet half a dozen times, each call louder than the last until his final call was little less than a scream. Suddenly contact was re-established for, in response to Jet’s repeated demands to know what was wrong, Lemmy cried breathlessly: “That music. Didn’t you hear it?”

“Music? What music?”

“But you must have heard it. It sounded as though it was right inside my helmet.”

“Lemmy, pull yourself together,” Jet commanded. “I heard no music. I heard nothing but your yelling and screaming.”

“But I was calling you before that. Didn’t you hear me?”

“Yes, and we replied. Now stay where you are, Lemmy. Don’t attempt to enter the ship until I’m alongside you.”

I SHALL never forget the sight of Lemmy as he came up out of the airlock. He had removed his helmet before he climbed the ladder, “to get a breath of air”, he said, although the air in the cabin was little different from that breathed in the suits; there was just more of it. His face was white and covered in perspiration. His eyes were glassy and he was trembling. Whatever he had heard out there, whatever it was that had happened, it had obviously frightened him very much.

I was all for letting him lie on his bunk to get over his shock, but Jet and Mitch, particularly Mitch, wanted to question him first. I protested, but Jet decided that a few questions now, while the experience was still fresh in Lemmy’s mind, would be more valuable.

All that Lemmy could say was that he had heard the weird music again and that it had ‘scared the living daylights out of him’. It had been stronger than before and had seemed to get ‘right inside’ him until he had felt sick and dizzy and was certain he would faint. That was when he began calling for me and then, receiving no answer, for Jet.

“Look, Lemmy,” said Jet, after listening to Lemmy’s version of the matter, “if there had been any noise, or music, as you call it, it must have been coming over your radio and we should have heard it, too.”

“Then if it didn’t come over the radio, where did it come from?”

No one answered this question. None of us would voice the first thought that came into all our minds, not in front of Lemmy anyway. But he was no fool.

“Oh,” he said, “so you think I imagined it. Think maybe I’m going crackers, got a screw loose somewhere. Well, I’m not, see. I heard it, I tell you, as clear as I can see you sitting there.”

“Then why didn’t you call us--tell us to listen out for it, too?” asked Mitch.

“I did. I called Doc the minute I heard it. But he didn’t answer. Then I called Jet, but he didn’t answer either--not until the noise stopped.”

Lemmy was still very agitated and, in his efforts to convince us of the truth of his story, was becoming even more worked up, shouting his replies at the top of his voice. I could see the danger signal and, in spite of Jet’s and Mitch’s objections, I, as ship’s doctor, insisted that he be questioned no more.