The Collection (73 page)

Granharn said, "Besides, we could have had a hundred
volunteers. Rocket cadets who
^'
ve got everything you have except one
round trip to the Moon already under their belts. We could have shown a picture
of Anna around and had them fighting for the chance. That gal is Moon
bait."

"Careful," Carmody said,
^"
you are speaking
of my wife." He was kidding, of course, but it was funny--he really hadn't
liked Granham's wisecrack.

Zero hour was ten p.m., and at zero minus fifteen minutes he
was already strapped into the webbing, waiting. There wasn't anything for him
to do except stay alive. The rockets would be fired by a chronometer set for
the exact fraction of a second.

Despite its small payload, the rocket was a little roomier
inside than the first one he'd gone to the Moon in, the R-24. The R-24 had been
as roomy as a tight coffin. This one, the R-46, was four feet in diameter
inside. He'd be able to get at least a hit of arm and leg exercise on the way
and not-as the first time-arrived so cramped that it had taken him over an hour
to be able to move freely.

And this time he wouldn't have the horrible discomfort of
having to wear his spacesuit, except for the helmet, en route. There's room in
a four-foot cylinder to put a space-suit on, and his was in a compartment-along
with the food, water and oxygen-at the front (or top) of the rocket. It would
be an hour's work to struggle into it, but he wouldn't have to do it until he
was several hours away from the Moon.

Yes, this was going to be a breeze compared to the last
trip. Comparative freedom of movement, forty-four hours as against ninety, only
three gravities as against four and a half.

Then sound that was beyond sound struck him, sound so loud
that he heard if with all of his body rather than only with his carefully
plugged ears. It built up, seeming to get louder every second, and his weight
built up too. He weighed twice his normal weight, then more. He felt the
sickening curve as the automatic tilting mechanism turned the rocket, which had
at first gone straight up, forty-five degrees. He weighed four hundred and eighty
pounds and the soft webbing seemed to be hard as steel and to cut into him.
Padding was' compressed rill it felt like stone. Sound and pressure went on and
on interminably. Surely it had been hours instead of minutes.

Then, at the moment of
Brennschluss,
free of the pull
of Earth-sudden silence, complete weightlessness. He blacked out.

But only minutes had gone by when he returned to consciousness.
For a while he fought nausea and only when he was sure he had succeeded did he
unbuckle himself from the webbing that had held him through the period of acceleration.
Now he was coasting, weightless, at a speed that would carry him safely toward
the gravitational pull of the Moon. No further firing of fuel would be
necessary until he used his jets to brake his landing.

All he had to do now was hang on, to keep from going crazy
from claustrophobia during the forty hours before he
^'
d have to start
getting ready for the landing.

It was a dull time, but it passed.

Into spacesuit, back into the webbing, but this time with
his hands free so he could manipulate the handles that controlled the braking
jets.

He made a good landing; it didn't even knock him unconscious.
After only a few minutes he was able to unbuckle himself from the webbing. He
sealed his spacesuit and started the oxygen, then let himself out of the
rocket. It had fallen over on its side after the landing, of course; they
always do. But he had the equipment and knew the technique for getting it upright
again, and there wasn't any hurry about doing it.

The supply rockets had been shot accurately, all right. Six
of them, four American type and two Russian, lay within a radius of a hundred
yards of his own rocket. He could see others farther away, but didn
^'
t
waste time counting them. He looked for one that would be larger than the
rest-the manned (or womaned) rocket from Russia. He located it finally, almost
a mile away. He saw no spacesuited figure near it.

He started toward it, running with the gliding motion,
almost like skating, that had been found to be easier than walking in the light
gravitational pull of the Moon. Spacesuit, oxygen tank and all, his total
weight was about forty-five pounds. Running a mile was less exertion than a
100-yard dash on Earth.

He was more than glad to see the door of the Russian rocket
open when he was about three-quarters of the way to it. He
^'
d have
had a tough decision to make if it had still been closed when he got there. Not
knowing whether Anna was sealed in her spacesuit or not inside the rocket, he
wouldn't have dared open the door himself. And, in case she was seriously
injured, he wouldn't have dared not to.

She was out of the rocket, though, by the time he reached
her. Her face, through the transpariplast helmet, looked pale, but she managed
to smile at him.

He turned on the short-range radio of his set and asked,
"Are you all right?"

^"
A bit weak. The landing knocked me out, but
I guess there are no bones broken. Where shall we-set up housekeeping?"

"Near my rocket, I think. It's closer to the middle of
where the supply rockets landed, so we won
^'
t have to move things so
far. I
^'
ll get started right away. You stay here and rest until
you're feeling better. Know how to navigate in this gravity?"

"I was told how. I haven't had a chance to try yet. I
^'
ll
probably fall flat on my face a few times."

"It won't hurt you. When you start, take your time till
you get the knack of it. I'll begin with this nearest supply rocket; you can
watch how I navigate.
^"

It was about a hundred yards back the way he
^'
d
come.

The supply rockets were at least a yard in outside diameter,
and were so constructed that the nose and the tail, which contained the rocket
mechanism, were easily detachable, leaving the middle section containing the
payload, about the size of an oil drum and easily rolled. Each weighed fifty
pounds, Moon weight.

He saw Anna starting to work by the time he was dismantling
the second supply rocket. She was awkward at first, and did lose her balance
several times, but mastered the knack quickly. Once she had it, she moved more
gracefully and easily than Carmody. Within an hour they had payload sections of
a dozen rockets lined up near Carmody's rocket.

Eight of them were American rockets and from the numbers on
them, Carmody knew he had all sections needed to assemble the shelter.

"We'd better set it up," he told her. "After
that's done, we can take things easier. We can rest before we gather in the
other loot. Even have a drink to celebrate.
^"

The Sun was well up over the ringwall of Hell Crater by then
and it was getting hot enough to be uncomfortable, even in an insulated
spacesuit. Within hours, Carmody knew, it would he so hot that neither of them
would be able to stay out of the shelter for much longer than one-hour
intervals, but that would be time enough for them to gather in the still
uncollected supply rockets.

Back in the supply depot on Earth, Carmody had assembled a
duplicate of the prefab shelter in not much more than an hour. It was tougher
going here, because of the awkwardness of working in the thickly insulated
gloves that were part of the spacesuits. With Anna helping, it took almost two
hours.

He gave her the sealing preparation and a special tool for
applying it. While she calked the seams to make the shelter airtight, he began
to carry
supplies, including oxygen tanks, into the shelter. A little of
everything; there was no point in crowding themselves by taking inside more of
anything than they'd need for a day or so at a time.

He got and set up the cooling unit that would keep the
inside of the shelter at a comfortable temperature, despite the broiling Sun.
He set up the air-conditioner unit that would release oxygen at a specified
rate and would absorb carbon dioxide, ready to start as soon as the calking was
done and the airlock closed. It would build up an atmosphere rapidly once he
could turn it on. Then they could get out of the uncomfortable spacesuits.

He went outside to see how Anna was coming with her task and
found her working on the last seam.

^"
Atta baby," he told her.

He grinned to himself at the thought that he really should
carry his
bride over the threshold-but that would be rather difficult
when the threshold was an airlock that you had to crawl through on your hands
and knees. The shelter itself was dome-shaped and looked exactly like a metal
igloo, even to the projecting airlock, which
was a low, semi-circular
entrance.

He remembered that he'd forgotten the whisky and walked over
to one of the supply rocket sections to get a bottle of it. He came back with
it, shielding the bottle with his body from the direct rays of the Sun, so it
wouldn't boil.

He happened to look up.

It was a mistake.

REPORT TO EARTH

"It's incredible," Granham snapped.

Carmody glared at him. "Of course it is. But it happened.
It
^'
s true. Get a lie detector if you don
^'
t believe
rue."

"I'll do that little thing," Granham said grimly.
"One's on its way here now; I'll have it in a few minutes. I want to
try
you with it before the President-and others who are going to talk to you-get a
chance to do it. I'm supposed to fly you to Washington right away, but I
^'
m
waiting till I can use that lie detector first."

"Good," Carmody said. "Use it and be damned.
I'm telling you the truth.
^"

Granham ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. He
said, "I guess I believe you at that, Carmody. It
^'
s just -too
big, too important a thing to take any one person's word about, even any two
people
^'
s words, assuming that Anna Borisovna-Anna Carmody, I
mean-tells the same story. We've got word that she's landed safely, too, and is
reporting."

"She'll tell the same story. It's what happened to us.
^"

"Are you
sure,
Carmody that they were
extra-terrestrials? That they weren
^'
t-well, Russians? Couldn
^'
t
they have been?
^"

"Sure, they could have been Russians. That is, if there
are Russians seven feet all and so thin they
^'
d weigh about fifty
pounds on Earth, and with yellow skins. I don't mean yellow like Orientals; I
mean
bright
yellow. And with four arms apiece and eyes with no pupils
and no lids. Also if Russians have a spaceship that doesn
^'
t use
jets-and don
^'
t ask me what its source of power was; I don't
know."

^"
And they held you captive, both of you, for
a full thirteen days, in separate cells? You didn
^'
t even-
^"

^"
I didn't even," Carmody said grimly
and bitterly. "And if we hadn
^'
t been able to escape when we
did, it would have been too late. The Sun was low on the horizon-it was almost
Moon night-when we got to our rockets. We had to rush like the devil to get
them fueled and up on their tail fins in time for us to take off."

There was a knock on Granham
^'
s door that turned
out to be a technician with the lie detector-one of the very portable and very
dependable Nally jobs that had become the standard army machine in 1958.

The technician rigged it quickly and watched the dials while
Granham asked a few questions, very guarded ones so the technician wouldn
^'
t
get the picture. Then Granham looked at the technician inquiringly.

"On the beam,
^"
the technician told him.
^"
Not a flicker."

^"
He couldn't fool the machine?
^"

"This detector?
^"
the technician asked,
patting it.
^"
It
^'
d take neurosurgery or post-hypnotic
suggestion like there never was to beat this baby. We even catch psycopathic
liars with it.
^"

"Come on," Graham said to Carmody. "We're on
our way to Washington and the plane
^'
s ready. Sorry for doubting you,
Carmody, but to had to be sure-and report to the President that I
am
sure.
^"

"I don
^'
t blame you,
^"
Carmody
told him.
^"
It
^'
s hard for me to believe, and I was
there.''
^'

The plane that had brought Carmody from Washington to
Suffolk Field had been a hot ship. The one that took him back-with Granham
jockeying it-was almost incandescent. It cracked the sonic barrier and went on
from there.

They landed twenty minutes after they took off. A helicopter
was waiting for them at the airport and got them to the White House in another
ten minutes.

And in two minutes more they were in the main conference
room, with President Saunderson and half a dozen others gathered there. The
Eastern Alliance ambassador was there, too.

President Saunderson shook hands tensely and made short work
of the introductions.

"We want the whole story, Captain," he said.
"But I
^'
m going to relieve your mind on two things first. Did
you know that Anna landed safely near Moscow?
^"