Chapter 8 Moon Ahead!

Dr. Phelps pulled himself out of his couch and drifted over to the huddled group. His face was pale, his eyes streaked with the bleariness of sleep. His shaggy black brows seemed even more unruly than usual. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper.

“What’s the trouble, Dan?”

Forbes swallowed hard. “George. His head... he...”

Dr. Phelps nodded briefly. Somehow, he was no longer the unkempt scarecrow in baggy coveralls who asked simple questions about rocket behavior. He was now in complete command of the situation. “Fred,” he said to Dr. Gehardt, “get the medical kit. Dan, get us some sandals and weights to hold George down.” He shoved himself closer to Merola, his slim fingers spreading the matted hair around the open wound, his eyes narrowing.

“Nasty,” he said. “How’d this happen?”

“He took a swing at a loose...” Ted started to explain.

“Baker found a loose rivet,” Forbes said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “George was trying to fix it.”

Dr. Phelps nodded, waiting as Forbes brought him a pair of magnetized sandals. He slipped these on quickly, wrapped his arms around Merola’s waist.

“Give me a push down,” he said to Ted.

Ted braced himself by clinging to one of the couches, then shoved down hard on the doctor’s shoulder. Together with his burden, Dr. Phelps floated to the deck. His magnetized sandals gripped the metal and held him firmly rooted there, his arms still tight around Merola’s waist.

“Let’s hurry,” he called to Dr. Gehardt.

Forbes, sandals on his own feet now, helped Dr. Phelps lower Merola to the deck. He threw a line over Merola’s chest, the magnetic blocks on either end clinging to the deck. He did the same to the captain’s knees, then held his head up while Dr. Phelps examined the wound more closely.

“Here’s the kit, Peter,” Dr. Gehardt said, drifting over from one of the lockers.

“Thank you.” Dr. Phelps took the kit and rested its magnetic bottom on the deck. He lifted the lid a trifle, removing a plastic container of alcohol and slamming the lid tight again. He squirted some alcohol onto his hands and rubbed them briskly. He then reached into the kit for a wad of cotton, saturating it with alcohol. Methodically, deftly, he began to clean the wound.

“I hope it’s just a fracture,” he murmured.

Beads of sweat stood out on Forbes’s forehead beneath his close-cropped hair. There was a worried expression on his face. He licked his lips quickly.

“What else could it be, Doc?”

Dr. Phelps didn’t look up. His fingers kept moving rapidly around the wound. “Concussion,” he murmured.

Ted watched them from above, wanting to help, but knowing there was nothing he could really do.

“Is that bad?” Forbes asked.

Dr. Phelps’s black brows curled up onto his forehead in surprise. “Concussion?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Dr. Phelps nodded solemnly. “Yes, I’m afraid concussion would be very bad.”

Forbes let out a deep breath.

“The bleeding doesn’t seem to be too bad though,” Dr. Phelps went on. He barely turned his head. “Fred, let me have one of those sulfapaks.”

Dr. Gehardt lifted the lid of the kit too quickly, and a roll of gauze floated up into the air, unrolling as it went. Dr. Gehardt made a stab at recapturing it.

“Let it go,” Dr. Phelps said quickly. “The sulfapak, please.”

Dr. Gehardt’s fingers fumbled inside the kit. He was trembling when he finally handed Dr. Phelps the package. The physician ripped the package open, stared at the pad for a moment and then quickly placed it over the wound.

“There are some large squares of cotton in the kit,” he said. “The material, not the absorbent cotton. May I have several of them?”

Dr. Gehardt found the handkerchief-size pieces of cloth and handed them to Dr. Phelps. Quickly the doctor’s fingers formed the squares into a solid-looking ring pad, slightly larger than the wound and resembling a cloth quoit. “Get the gauze now,” he said.

Ted snatched the roll of gauze out of the air and brought it down to the doctor. Dr. Phelps took the end of the roll, placed the ring pad in place over the dressing, and then looped the gauze under Merola’s chin, up over his head and the wound, under the chin again. He kept unwinding the roll until the ring pad was completely covered with several layers of gauze. He snipped off a half-inch of adhesive then, and taped the bandage in place. He ran another bandage across Merola’s forehead and over the wound, taping this too.

“All right,” he said, “let’s move him to one of the couches.”

Forbes clumped across the deck in his heavy sandals and guided Merola’s feet, as Dr. Phelps steered his shoulders into the bottom couch on the starboard side of the ship. They laid him down gently, pulling the straps over his shoulders and waist.

Dr. Phelps squirted some more alcohol onto his hands, rinsing off the blood. He dried his hands, his eyes never leaving Merola’s inert figure on the couch.

He shook his head then. “There’s nothing more we can do. Except wait. And maybe pray.”

On the fourth day out from the Station, long after they had fixed the loose rivet, Forbes called a meeting of the crew. They clustered around the instrument panel, their faces serious. Ted stood off in the corner of the ship, an unwelcome eavesdropper.

Forbes got straight to the point. He ran his strong, square finger tips through his short blond hair, pulled his hand away from his head, and said, “We’re in a tight spot.” He paused, and his eyes were troubled. He looked as if he were about to cry, his features about to crumble. “George is still unconscious. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“I don’t believe it’s a concussion,” Dr. Phelps said. “A very bad fracture and subsequent shock — but not a concussion.” He shook his head. “If we had some way of taking an X ray...”

“Will he be coming around soon?” Forbes asked.

Dr. Phelps sighed deeply. “I wish I knew. He may gain consciousness at any moment, or it may take days.”

“We haven’t got days, Doc,” Forbes said grimly.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple. At about this time tomorrow, we’ll have to attempt a landing on the Moon.” Forbes’s shoulders sagged, as if he were too tired to go on. “George is our pilot and navigator.”

“Must we land tomorrow?” Dr. Gehardt asked. His eyes were cloudy with concern. Ted noticed that he seemed somehow older since the accident. “Isn’t there some way to postpone it until George is...”

“Our orbit was calculated to take us to the Moon,” Forbes said. “If we don’t land on it, we’ll crash on it.”

“Can’t we change our orbit?” Dr. Gehardt asked.

Forbes shook his head. “We’ve got just enough fuel to get us to the Moon. If we use that fuel to change our orbit, avoiding a crash, we wouldn’t have any left to take us anywhere else. As it is, we’ll be using that fuel when we start braking for a landing.”

“Braking?”

“Yes. In effect, we’ll be turning the rocket so that she’ll come down tail first, the thrust of our jets braking our descent. In other words, we’ll be literally sitting down on our jets.”

“But if you know all this, why can’t you bring her down?” Dr. Phelps asked.

Forbes slammed his fist into the open palm of his other hand. “That’s just the trouble. I know this ship as well as I know my own mother. I can take it apart and put it together again blindfolded. But navigation is something else again. And I wouldn’t want to fool with a navigation problem as tricky as this one will be.”

“But... I don’t understand. Why can’t we radio the Space Station? They should be able to give us directions.”

Forbes shook his head. “Doc, the only part of this trip that isn’t automatic is the landing process. Someday, maybe that’ll be automatic, too. But right now, all the figures are theoretical — and the margin of error is too great to gamble on.”

“We do have figures, then?”

“Sure. We have loads of approximate figures. All supplied by the Station months before the actual trip. Figures that say when turnover should take place, how long we should blast, all of it. But these figures have to be constantly checked against our course and speed and distance from the Moon as we move along. That can’t be done from the Station.”

“Why not? We can radio them, and they can do the computation there.”

“Up to a point, yes.”

“Why only up to a point?”

“Because turnover has to be a split-second maneuver. We could miss our turnover point in the time it took us to call a set of figures to the Station.”

“I see.”

“We could probably do the computation ourselves, and much faster. It takes quite a while for a voice to travel from here to the Station.”

“Yes,” Dr. Phelps agreed. “We’d be better off computing the figures ourselves.”

“I could probably handle that. Maybe. But tying that in with the actual navigation... that’s another thing. Translating figures into actual maneuvers...” Forbes shook his head. “And knowing just when to perform the maneuvers...”

“But suppose you had to?”

Forbes spread his hands helplessly. “I still couldn’t do it, Doc. It’s like... like asking me to perform brain surgery. Even if I had to, I couldn’t.”

Dr. Phelps nodded glumly. “I see.”

“Dan!”

The voice was barely a whisper. It shuddered across the cabin like a hoarse wind from a mountain-top.

“Dan!”

Forbes shoved himself away from the instrument panel. “George!” he shouted, his eyes brightening. “George, boy, George!”

In spite of the heavy sandals, he crossed the deck like a jack rabbit, pulling himself up short beside Merola’s couch. He kneeled down, his ear close to Merola’s face.

“Dan... how... how long?” Merola asked.

“To braking?” Forbes asked.

Merola opened his mouth as if to speak. He closed it then, as if the effort were too tiring. He nodded his head instead, his eyes clenched tight, his face lax.

“Tomorrow sometime,” Forbes answered.

Merola nodded again. He seemed to lapse into unconsciousness once more, and he remained silent for so long that Forbes finally whispered, “George, can you hear me?”

Merola tried to nod his head, his features distorted in pain. “Hurts,” he whispered. “Hurts like... like the...”

“Don’t try to talk,” Forbes said. “You’ll be all right by tomorrow. You’ll be able to land us.”

There was a long silence, and Ted could hear the heavy breathing of the men. The two doctors were crowded in behind Forbes, anxiously looking down at Merola.

A tired sigh escaped Merola’s drawn lips. He shook his head vaguely and whispered, “No... won’t... hurts...”

“You’ll be fine,” Forbes reassured him.

“No,” Merola said again. “Boy... Jack...”

“Jack’s not with us, George,” Forbes said gently.

Merola nodded weakly, then breathed deeply. “Know... I know. Ted, I mean. Baker... Baker...”

Ted’s heart quickened at mention of his name. He walked across the cabin, drawing closer to the men, hoping they wouldn’t send him off again.

“What about Baker?” Forbes asked, his voice harsh in spite of his obvious attempt to keep it gentle.

“Land... Baker... Academy boy,” Merola mumbled.

“You mean...”

A low sigh escaped Merola’s lips again; a long, tired, “Oh-h-h-h-h.” His eyes flickered briefly, almost as if he were struggling to open them, and then he seemed to sag back against the cushion.

“I think that’s all he’ll say now,” Dr. Phelps said. He pushed his way past Forbes and lifted Merola’s hand, his fingers closing around Merola’s pulse. “We’d better let him rest.”

“Do you think...?” Forbes started.

Dr. Phelps shook his head. “No. He won’t be strong enough by tomorrow.”

“Sir!”

Forbes whirled rapidly. “What are you doing here, Baker?”

“I didn’t want to eavesdrop, sir, but I couldn’t help hearing what Captain Merola...”

“I’m not interested in what you heard,” Forbes said tersely.

Ted’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. He paused a moment, gaining control of his emotions, and then said, “I could land the ship, sir. At least, I could make a good try at it.”

“You’re not making a try at anything,” Forbes answered. “Not while I’m in command.”

“Just a moment,” Dr. Phelps put in. “Let’s hear the boy out.” He turned to face Ted. “What makes you think you can land her?”

“I’m not sure I can, Dr. Phelps. But our Academy courses covered...”

“Did your Academy courses cover rocket landings on the Moon?” Forbes asked sarcastically.

“No, sir. But they did cover...”

“Look, Baker,” Forbes interrupted, “let’s get something straight right now. You’re on this ship as an intruder, an illegal stowaway in someone else’s place. We’re not interested in any more of your glory-seeking plans. If I were you...”

“I’m not a glory hound,” Ted shouted, unable to control himself any longer. “I’m only trying to help. If you had any sense, you’d realize...”

“That’s enough, Baker.”

“You’d realize I’m offering...”

“I said that’s enough!”

The cabin was suddenly silent. All sound seemed to have stopped with Forbes’s last words. Ted stared at him helplessly, wanting to break through to the man, but finding it impossible.

Dr. Phelps was the first to speak. “I don’t want to question your authority, Dan,” he said, “but our present position seems to transcend personal feelings. If Baker thinks he can...”

“I wish you wouldn’t question my authority, Doc,” Forbes said curtly.

“Come, come,” Dr. Gehardt interceded, “there is no need for this kind of talk,” He shook his head as if he wondered about the motivations of men.

“I won’t stand on ceremony, Dan,” Dr. Phelps said. He sighed heavily. “You know as well as I the way I feel about Baker. But my personal feelings — or yours — aren’t worth a tinker’s toot at the moment. We’re supposed to take this ship to the Moon. You said yourself we’d crash if George weren’t conscious to land the ship. Well, George isn’t conscious, and I doubt if he will be, in time to land.”

“That doesn’t mean...”

“It means,” Dr. Phelps went on, “that we can choose to crash the ship and kill ourselves — or give Baker a stab at saving her.”

“What makes you think Baker can save her?” Forbes asked.

“Suppose we let Baker tell us,” Dr. Phelps said softly.

“I’m not sure,” Ted said.

“Then why’d you say you could land her?”

“I’ve had three years of Navigation, sir,” Ted answered, “I know all the theories behind landing. I know how to turn a rocket, and I could probably learn these controls pretty quickly.”

“But you’ve never actually landed one, have you?”

“No, sir.”

There was silence again. Then Dr. Gehardt said, “It’s a matter of degree, isn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

Dr. Gehardt shrugged. “No one has ever landed a rocket on the Moon.” He paused. “Not even George.”

“But George is an experienced pilot and navigator,” Forbes complained. “He’s brought more than a hundred rockets back safely from the Station to Earth.”

“But he’s never landed one on the Moon,” Dr. Gehardt repeated.

“Hang it all, you’re arguing on a technicality. George has gone over the approximate landing procedure more times than I can count. Back on Earth he sat in the dummy control booth for days, practicing turnover and deceleration under conditions similar to the ones we’ll meet. He could figure just when to turn over, just how long to blast, just where we’re to put her down. You seem to be forgetting that we can’t just bring this baby down anywhere. Supplies are waiting for us on the Moon. And fuel for the return trip. We’ve got to put down almost on a dime — or we’ll be worse off than we are now.”

“You’re describing ideal conditions,” Dr. Phelps said. “Unfortunately, those conditions do not exist now. Even assuming that Baker fails — even assuming that he crashes the ship and we’re all killed — will we be doing any better if we simply allow it to crash of its own accord?”

Forbes turned his back on the men and walked to the viewport. “Of all the rotten luck,” he muttered.

“We can’t cry over our ill luck,” Dr. Phelps said. “We either face it and try to do something about it, or we give up. I for one, do not want to lose either the rocket or my life. I say we give Baker a chance.”

Forbes whirled suddenly. “And I say no!”

“Are there maps of the Moon on the ship?” Dr. Gehardt asked.

“What difference does that make?” Forbes replied.

“The supply and fuel dump should be marked on the maps.”

“Yes, there are maps,” Forbes said grudgingly. “We’ll be able to see the spot on the radar, anyway. A marker was sent up beforehand. It exploded when it hit the Moon’s surface, marking the spot with plaster of Paris.”

“Then Baker would know where to put it down.”

“Where isn’t the problem. The problem is when, and how.”

Dr. Gehardt shrugged and spread his palms wide. “I don’t see that we have any choice, Dan.”

Dr. Phelps gripped Ted’s shoulders with his long, bony fingers. “Do you think you can do it, Baker?”

Ted hesitated a moment. “I... can’t promise anything. I... I’ll study the figures and the controls and... I’ll... try.”

“And that’s not enough,” Forbes put in quickly.

Dr. Phelps smiled. “It’s more than any of us can do, Dan. You could help with the computation, but the boy has had training. Not specialized training, true, but perhaps enough to save the expedition. I’m afraid neither an engineer, a geologist, nor a physician is going to be much help in this situation.”

“That’s why Jack was to have come along,” Forbes said. “If Baker hadn’t...”

“But Baker did,” Dr. Phelps said, “and Baker is here now. Jack is a long way off.”

Forbes walked to the viewport and stood looking out at the stars. “Do what you want to do,” he said sullenly.

“We’ll let Baker try it,” Dr. Phelps said.

“Yes,” Dr. Gehardt agreed confidently.

Ted silently wished he could share the geologist’s confidence.

The rocket raced through space, a silver ship biting at the canopy of the sky. The blackness was dense, an almost tangible thing that spread around the ship like the heavy folds of a cloak. There was no sound. The blackness was a silent thing, immeasurable, infinite.

Only the stars interrupted the monotony of endless darkness.

Only the stars — and the cold Moon hanging against the ebony sky ahead.

There wasn’t much time.

There wasn’t much time. Hardly enough time, Ted thought. Even with Forbes grudgingly calling off the figures and going over the controls with him, he felt the pressure of time against him. He studied the controls with the patient care of a mother hen coddling her brood. He checked each instrument, comparing the figures with the theoretical ones the Space Station had supplied. He studied every button, every lever, every switch. And periodically he would glance up at the radar screen as the Moon grew larger and larger.

The Moon waited. The Moon had all the time in the world. There was no rush, no rush at all. Its crags and craters bleakly poked at the sky, oblivious of the speeding rocket, oblivious of the sweating, anxious men within that rocket. It waited.

The map was clear, and the area was plainly marked. If he worked everything correctly, they would come down within fifty yards of the supply dump. They would come down gently, easing toward the surface of the Moon on their stern jets, sitting down like a cat on a velvet pillow. If they came down correctly. There was the strong possibility that they would not come down correctly. And as Ted studied the map, he remembered that an unhindered fall to the surface of the Moon would crash the rocket at a speed of more than 5,000 miles per hour.

There wouldn’t be much left to pick up.

The rocket hurried to reach the embrace of the Moon. It ate space hungrily, swallowing the blackness, devouring the miles with a ravenous appetite. Its speed had been slowing, but that would soon change. When it reached a spot 24,000 miles from the Moon, the gravitational fields of Earth and its satellite would balance exactly. After that, the rocket would build up speed again, falling faster and faster, falling toward the uncompromising surface of the Moon. The rocket hurried toward its rendezvous.

Ted worked furiously with pencil and paper, referring constantly to the instruments that measured their speed and distance from the Moon. He would have to start turnover soon. With time to accomplish this first step in the landing, the task would not be so difficult.

Tremulously, he told the men what he intended doing.

“It’s in your hands,” Dr. Phelps said.

“Do as you see fit,” Dr. Gehardt said, nodding his bald head.

Forbes said nothing. He crouched beside Merola, studying the captain’s pale features.

The buttons were pushed and the circuits closed. The hum of the engines politely intruded into the silence of space. At the ship’s center of gravity, the flywheel began to rotate, slowly at first, and then increasing in speed. The port rockets spit yellow fire into the night, and the ship turned slowly, like a lethargic grub on a vast, black leaf.

Its nose pointed back over the miles it had covered, and its stern jets came around toward the face of the Moon, slowly, slowly.

Ted stood by the control panel, watching the Moon disappear from the forward radar screen. He flicked on the rear radar, then waited. The Moon shoved its way across the screen, still distant, yet ever closer. In the forward radar, Earth appeared, blue against the blackness, large. Ted closed a knife switch, and the engines swallowed their own roar until there was only silence again and the harsh breathing of the men.

“Does that do it?” Forbes asked. There was bitterness in his voice, but there was concern too.

“I think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“When will we know?” Dr. Gehardt asked.

“When we actually come down,” Ted said. “We’ll start braking when we get a little closer to the Moon.”

“How close?” Forbes asked.

“I figure we should start braking when the Moon is about two hundred miles below us.”

“What...”

“It’s not so risky as it sounds, sir,” Ted said.

“Not risky? Traveling at something like 5,000 miles an hour?”

“If we can produce a deceleration of one gravity with our rockets — and I know we can — we’ll be able to check our fall in about four minutes. That should bring us down to the surface.”

“Let the boy do it his way,” Dr. Phelps said.

“Sure,” Forbes said sarcastically. “It’s only our necks.”

In the radar screen the Moon grew larger. The rocket charged through space like a knight in silver armor. On the instrument panel, the electronic impulses being sent to the Moon’s surface bounced back with blinding rapidity, recording the distances. A thousand miles. Five hundred miles. Four hundred miles. Three hundred miles.

“Better take to the couches,” Ted said.

“Are we ready to land?”

“Yes. Almost.”

“Are we going to come down near the supplies?”

“I... I think so.”

He eyed the radar screen again, the Moon completely filling it now. The men shuffled to the couches, removed their sandals, and strapped themselves in. Ted climbed into his own couch, swinging the portable control panel into place. His eyes never left the instruments as his finger hovered over the button that would release the fury of the engines once more. The range marker dropped to two-fifty, two-forty, two-thirty...

The rocket fell toward the Moon, its blasting tubes pointing toward the surface, its nose turned away from the satellite. The open ends of the tubes were blackened and scorched — dead holes punched in a silver frame.

And suddenly they belched fire, and the ship seemed to tremble with the sudden thrust. A livid tail of yellow lashed at the sky, ripping at the blackness.

The ship shuddered, swallowing its tail as it plunged downward.

Together, like two wrestlers, the rocket and the Moon reached for each other.