Marooned on Mars

CHAPTER 1 Return to Moon City

For the last hour, the big helicopter had been climbing through the night and the thinning air toward the peaks of the Andes. Now, 18,000 feet above sea level, it straightened out and the sound of its motor settled down to a steady hum. Sunlight was already touching the mountain-tops, and the rocket field showed up plainly, only a mile ^ahead.

“The stocky, blond boy in the passenger seat stirred suddenly and began rubbing sleep out of his blue eyes. Chuck Svensen was short for his age—not quite eighteen and only five-feet-seven—and there was no sign of hair on his face yet. He had always had trouble convincing people he was as old as he was, and the eagerness on his face as he saw the rocket field made him look even younger. But there was respect on the pilot’s face.

“Must feel good to be going home to the Moon,” the man suggested with a touch of envy in his voice.

Chuck grinned. “Great. After four years up there at one-sixth Earth weight, I feel like a ton of lead here. But it was worth it!”

“Worth it!” The pilot snorted, and the envy was stronger -this time. “Kid, you’re one of the six luckiest guys alive. I’d give my right arm for a chance to go on that first rocket to Mars!”

Chuck nodded. It still didn’t seem real to him. For four long years he’d watched the ship being built for the journey, without any hope. Even when the Governor at Moon City had won his request to have someone chosen from the Moon group as one of the crew. Chuck had hardly dared to dream. The age limit was set rigidly between eighteen and twenty-seven, and he would be barely eighteen when the date of the take-off came. When his experience with radar and his physical fitness finally won the chance for him, he’d been the most surprised person in all Moon City.

Then had come long nights of study with almost no sleep, a special trip to Earth, and two weeks of grueling tests to prove his ability. Now he had passed, and was on his way back to the Moon—to leave almost at once for Mars!

The helicopter was settling down on the rocket field-Chuck could see men moving about in the heavy clothing required by the bitter cold; the air was too thin for comfortable breathing, and all wore masks that supplied extra oxygen and made them look like inhuman monsters. He adjusted his own mask as the helicopter touched earth, hovered, then slipped onto the field.

The special little rocket ship from the Moon had already landed and was being readied for the trip back. From the three fins at its base, which now served as legs, it stretched up about forty feet to a sharp tip; the whole looked something like a fat cigar equipped with stubby wings. Pumps were busy piping liquid into the fuel tanks and loading cranes were storing boxes of precision tools into the little freight compartment. One huge machine had pulled out the worn lining of the big rocket tube at its tail and was fitting another in place,” while a second was working on the ship’s compact atomic motor, replacing the original cans of plutonium with fresh ones.

But Chuck had seen all that before. He shoved through the men who were guiding the machines at a safe distance from the opened atomic engine, and headed toward the canteen. In his clothes and mask, he looked like any of the others, and no one paid any attention to him. It was a welcome change after the publicity he had received when he had passed his tests.

Inside the pressurized dining hall, Chuck found the little rocket pilot busily consuming coffee and watching the counterman make more. Jeff Foldingchair stood less than five feet tall, but his deep-tanned face and blue-black hair fitted his claim to being a full-blooded Cherokee Indian.

The man had been on the second trip to reach the Moon, twenty-five years before, and he was still one of the best rocket pilots in the business.

His black eyes met Chuck’s in the mirror behind the counter. He didn’t look around, but his white teeth flashed in a sudden smile. “Pull up, kid, and have a coffee. Sure is good to drink real Java after that concentrate stuff on the Moon. We’ve got ten minutes before we blast off… um-m, congratulations. Everybody in Moon City’s proud enough of you to bust!”

“Banana cream pie,” Chuck ordered, dropping beside Jeff. On the Moon there was food enough, and plenty of fresh vegetables from the tank gardens; but this would be his last taste of the luxuries for a long time. “I’m lucky you’re here, Jeff. I thought I’d have to take one of those slow ships back—and nine hours beats four days any time!”

Jeff shook his head, motioning for more coffee. “No hick to it, kid. Governor Braithwaite sent me down to pick you up. The tools I’m hauling back were just an excuse; they could have waited. Chuck, you never saw such a celebration…”

He stopped as a uniformed attendant came through the tunnel that led to the. main offices. The man motioned to the pilot, and Jeff got up with a shrug and followed him out.

Chuck smiled to himself as he attacked the pie. He could imagine the celebration in Moon City when they heard he had passed. No real nation could ever be more intensely patriotic than the little Lunar colony. It didn’t matter that he’d been born in the United States and had only been there four years; nationalities didn’t matter there—a year was enough to make a real Moon citizen. Esperanto, the artificial language which had been used at first to avoid the confusion of many languages, was now the normal language, even in the homes; nobody asked about a man’s birthplace—it was enough that he was now living on the Moon.

There was even some talk of independence in the full

tare, though everyone was well enough satisfied with Governor Braithwaite. He’d been appointed by the United Nations, which controlled the whole Moon, but he was as much of a Lunar citizen now as anyone else who lived there.

The Mars Expedition, of course, was being run by the United States under special charter from the UN to use the Moon, and the Governor had no real authority over it. Yet his general popularity had led to a quick acceptance of his request for one crew member to be from the Moon;

and nobody had questioned his choice of Chuck for the position. He’d exceeded his authority in sending the speedy little rocket for Chuck, but the ‘boy knew nobody would protest.

Jeff came back, interrupting Chuck’s reflections. The sharp planes of the pilot’s face showed worry, though he grinned at Chuck. “Meteorites out in space—they may change the course to Mars a bit,” he reported; the worry was in his voice too. “Eat up, Chuck, we’re about ready to make the big jump.”

“Dangerous meteorites?” Chuck asked. Most of the bits of rock and metal in space called meteorites were tiny things, but they traveled so rapidly that they could easily damage a ship.

Jeff shrugged, “Hard to say. Um-m, I’ve been thinking, though. Maybe this business of going off to Mars now is all darned foolishness.-Ten years from now, it’ll be routine; maybe you’d be smarter to stick with your family, let some other fool go chasing after new planets.”

“Jeff!” Chuck dropped his fork onto the half-finished pie and swung around. “What’s up? Is something wrong with my permit to go?”

Jeff shook his head and banded over the radargram. “They’ve Just decided to move the take-off to Mars ahead two days. Forget it, I guess I’m just nursing a grouch today. Let’s get going.”

Chuck knew better than to try to pump the man. He got up and put his mask on again. But the worry persisted. There was no reason for Jeff to start advising against his going, unless there was a good chance he couldn’t go. The pilot had been one of the men to recommend Chuck to I the Governor. Yet the radargram had said only what Jeff had indicated. Either there was another ‘gram, or he missed the obvious.

On the field, the shields had been put back over the rocket ship’s atomic engine, making it safe to climb the ladder to the control room. Those shields had been developed slowly over the last quarter-century until they were nearly perfect. Half an inch of such shielding was better than fifty feet of solid concrete in holding back dangerous radiation. Without them, atomic-powered rockets would have been too dangerous to use. The old chemical rockets had needed a hundred tons of fuel to get two or three tons to the moon. Now the little six-ton rocket was powered by a mere two tons of liquid in her tanks.

Chuck followed Jeff up the ladder and into the tiny air lock, waiting while Jeff locked the outer door. They went through the inner one, which Jeff also locked, and up through a small hatch into the pilot’s quarters. The pilot went through the routine of checking the valves which controlled their air supply. Then he dropped onto a soft sponge mattress on the floor and began fastening himself down with web straps.

Chuck did the same. Lying down, the human body could take more acceleration pressure than in any other position, and all take-offs were made while they were stretched out at right angles to the direction of flight. All the control buttons and levers were set into the mattress directly under the pilot’s hands.

On a panel overhead, needles told what was going on in the ship; a big chronometer measured out the passing seconds. “Ten seconds,” Jeff announced.

Chuck forced himself to go limp on the foam rubber. Jeff nodded tautly and pressed a single button.

The big rocket jet behind let out a sudden bellowing roar that rose to a screech and faded out a few seconds later, as they passed the speed of sound. The floor seemed to come up and slap at Chuck’s back. Under the pressure of four gravities of acceleration, his weight seemed-four times that on Earth. His chest labored under the effort of breathing, and the blood roared in his ears, trying to run back from the front of his body. His eyes pressed against their sockets, and everything blurred. Even Jeff was gasping, in spite of his long experience.

They were adding 128 feet to their speed each second—going from zero to a full five thousand miles per hour is one minute, and adding the same amount to their speed with every minute that passed. They were already beyond Earth’s atmosphere, and still the rocket exhaust thundered out behind.

If there had been heavy air around them, its resistance would have heated the ship to the melting point and wasted most of the thrust of the rocket. That was why the ships still took off from the highest possible point on Earth, where the air was thinnest.

Mercifully, the pressure lasted only a few minutes. Jeff’s fingers tripped the switches, and the rocket-jet ceased. The ship had gained more than the seven-miles-a-second speed needed to carry them away from Earth and it would coast the rest of the way. Earth’s gravity still pulled at them weakly, but since it pulled against the ship-exactly as strongly as it did against the two men, there was no feeling of-weight or pressure against the ship’s floor.

The rebound of the mattress threw Chuck up against the straps, and his stomach did a series of flip-flops under the change. For a few seconds, his head spun dizzily as he lost his sense of balance. He’d been sick for hours on the first trip to the Moon, but his body had learned to adjust. Nagging waves of sickness passed. It was almost like floating in clear water, without the wet sensation.

For a moment, he was tempted to undo the straps and go floating about, bounding from walls and ceiling with a mere push of his finger. Then he remembered that he was ho longer a child, and relaxed back beside Jeff, watching out through the observation ports.

There wasn’t much to see. The rear radar screen overhead showed the Earth shrinking behind, while the Moon was still a tiny, sharp ball of white in the black sky. The stars were mere pinpoints of bright, cold fire; there were more than could be imagined on Earth. The sun lay to one side, but an automatic filter protected their eyes, and made it seem only an irregular circle of leaping flame. It was the same view Chuck was used to seeing from the airless Moon.

Jeff pointed to the side, and Chuck turned to look. A few miles away, one of the old doughnut-shaped orbital stations floated. It circled above the Earth in an orbit, like the Moon, but nearer, and might go on forever. Before the new fuels and improved shields bad made atomic-powered jets possible, men had used the stations as a step toward the moon; now they were abandoned, except for a few scientific uses.

“Progress,” Jeff said. “Used to take twenty trips from Earth to a station before we could get enough fuel for a ship to “leave it for the Moon. Now we do it directly. They built them to use for atom-bombing enemies on Earth in case of war; but when too many countries got orbital stations up, everybody got scared, and they turned the whole thing over to the UN. Started out for war and they led to real world peace!”

Chuck had studied it in school, though he found it hard to believe that the United Nations Council had ever been weaker than the countries it now ruled so easily.

Jeff took one final look as the station shot out of view. Then he relaxed beside the automatic timer that would waken him, closed his eyes, and was soon snoring quietly. Chuck tried to do the same, but the feeling of weightlessness bothered him, reminding him of the first trip, and the four years that had passed since then.

Chuck had always dreamed of leaving Earth, but he’d never seen a rocket take-off or spoken to a man who’d left -the planet until he was nearly fourteen. His father had been head engineer for a small company in the Midwest, and Chuck had been forced to content himself with what he could read about the Moon ships. Then, without warning, his father had announced that he was chosen to work on the big ship being built cm the Moon to reach Mars. Chuck had nearly gone wild at the idea of actually living on the Moon.

When the novelty had worn off, he’d pestered the construction men into letting him help during his free time away from school. It had seemed enough to be able to help in making it possible for others to go farther to other planets. His mind traced the days and months of watching the ship grow, and his eyes slowly closed.

They were almost to the Moon when Jeff wakened him. Chuck saw that the ship had already been turned, around with its tiny steering rockets, and now had its jet pointing toward the Lunar surface. In the rear radar screen, the big crater named Albategnius showed he was almost home. The crater’s eighty-mile diameter almost filled the screen, · and the two smaller craters inside it stood out clearly. Moon City lay in the smaller one that the first explorers had nicknamed Bud, and the Mars Expedition construction was going on in the other, known as Junior. Around the flat crater, the run walls that rose for thousands of feet were already shutting out the rest of the Moon, while the central peak seemed to stick straight up toward them. Even the observatory building beside it could be seen.

Jeff nodded sharply, and cut in the big rocket-jet-to slow their rushing speed. Landing was like take-off, except that it was trickier, since they had to reach zero speed exactly at the moment they touched the surface. Jeff frowned into the screen, and juggled the controls, while the agonizing pressure again caught at Chuck. When it ended, there was hardly a jar as they settled down on the three landing fins.

“Sweet landing,” Chuck said, and Jeff nodded. It had been an exceptionally smooth one.

They waited, while the ground below cooled from the heat of the rocket blast. Then there was a tapping sound from the surface of the ship. Jeff fingered a control that would open the outer air-lock door, waited, and sent a signal to close it again. The lock permitted men to enter the ship from the vacuum outside without too much loss of the ship’s air. A moment later, the inner door opened, and Chuck’s father pushed up the hatch to the control room.

He was wearing a suit that looked like a diver’s, with a transparent globular helmet over his head, which he now threw back. In his arms were suits for Jeff and Chuck. His tanned face broke into a wide grin, and his big, booming voice seemed to shake the little room.

“Chuck! Boy, you look like a million. Welcome home!”

“Hi, Dad!” Chuck’s throat caught as his father grabbed him in one arm, squeezing him briefly. Then he grinned back. “I passed! Dad, I can go to Mars!”

The smile slipped from William Svensen’s face, and his eyes darted suddenly toward Jeff Foldingchair. The pilot avoided the look and shrugged helplessly. “I told him the ship would take off two days early,” he said uncomfortably. “I figured he knew when his birthday was. Oh, heck, Svensen, I couldn’t really tell him!”

Chuck dropped back weakly toward the mattress. He’d been a dope not to know what it meant. Nobody could leave on the ship for Mars until he was eighteen and Chuck’s birthday was one day after the new take-off date.

Svensen shook his head slowly, and one hand fumbled out toward his son, holding the suit. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe we can do something about it Here, get into your suit. Your mother’s waiting at home, and we’d better get going. We’ll talk it over later. Nobody has said you can’t go yet.”

Chuck hid his head as he fumbled with the suit, trying to keep his father from seeing the sudden tears in his eyes. He knew the older man didn’t think he had a chance!