Chapter 9 Crashup

It was all wrong. Somehow, it felt all wrong, like running for a pop fly when you’re certain you’re going to miss it. Ted felt just that way. He watched the surface of the Moon expand in the radar screen, and he knew with sickening insight that he had missed the supply dump.

The Moon clung to the sky like a luminous, yellow egg, and the rocket moved swiftly toward the slender slice of darkness on its Western rim.

Forbes looked up at the radar, then snapped his eyes to Ted. “You’re way off, Baker,” he said tersely. Ted said nothing. He stared at the radar and licked his lips. The thunder of the engines filled the rocket as the ship descended rapidly, its speed diminishing as the engines decelerated by blasting.

“Don’t just sit there!” Forbes shouted. “Do something. You’re bringing her down in the wrong spot.”

Ted gulped hard. “There’s nothing I can do, sir.”

“What do you mean there’s...”

“Let him alone,” Dr. Phelps snapped. “Can’t you see he’s got his hands full?”

Forbes retreated into a gloomy silence. The men’s faces all turned to the radar screen and the growing picture of the Moon.

“Brace yourselves,” Ted said.

The screen was full now, brimming with the Moon’s light. The ship descended like a fast-moving elevator, its jet trail licking at the surface below.

“A few more seconds,” Ted said.

The ground came up suddenly, pitted, pockmarked. It filled the screen completely, blotting out the sky.

“This is it!” Ted shouted.

He pressed a button, and the engines stopped abruptly. Quickly Ted stabbed at another button, watching the indicator that showed the landing stilts were telescoping out of the ship.

“We’re coming down too fast,” Forbes screamed.

There was the sudden scrape of metal against rock. It screeched through the ship like the spine-curdling wail of chalk across a blackboard.

“Hold tight,” Ted warned.

The high whine of twisting, wrenching metal filled the cabin. The ship gave a sudden lurch to port, and Ted knew the landing stilt on that side had buckled beneath the too-rapidly descending weight of the rocket. He pressed a button on the panel in an attempt to retract that stilt, but his efforts led to more splintering noises. And above these, like the whine of a buzz saw combined with the crashing sound of spilling garbage cans, Ted heard the deafening roar of the rocket tubes digging into the Moon’s surface. Sudden fear raced through his nerves, and he felt a fine sheet of sweat burst out all over his body. The rocket teetered dangerously now, and he clung to the side of his couch. There was one last scream of tearing metal, and then the ship gave a convulsive shudder and settled back against the ground, still tilting to port.

Forbes was the first man out of his couch. He dropped to the deck and walked quickly to Merola’s couch. He peered in, satisfied himself that the captain was all right, and then walked to the viewport.

“You’ve done it, Baker,” he said bitterly. “This time you’ve really done it.”

Dr. Gehardt dropped to the deck, testing his long strides against the new-found gravity. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Baker’s smashed our landing gear, that’s for sure,” Forbes answered, “and he’s probably crippled the living daylights out of our tubes.”

Dr. Gehardt walked over to the viewport and stood alongside Forbes. “We can repair those, can’t we?”

“Maybe,” Forbes said briefly. “Now you’d better ask Wonder Boy where we are.”

Dr. Gehardt turned to Ted. “Well?” he asked.

Ted nervously wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I don’t know,” he answered.

“Well, I know,” Forbes put in. “Take a look out there, Doc.”

Dr. Gehardt peered through the viewport, his eyes softening. “The Moon,” he said simply, and there was wonder in his voice and a note of humbleness.

“Sure, the Moon. And darkness. Darkness.”

Dr. Phelps crowded up against the viewport. “What’s so strange about that?”

“Nothing strange about it at all. Except that at this phase of the Moon, our supplies should be in the sunlight. If we’d landed near our supplies, there’d be no darkness outside.”

“Then we are not near our supplies?”

“I must have turned the ship over too soon,” Ted said. “I just fouled up, I guess. I shouldn’t have tried it.”

“You should have thought of that beforehand,” Forbes said. He whirled from the viewport and crossed the cabin.

“What are you going to do?” Dr. Gehardt asked. He was still worried-looking, his face tired and drawn.

“I’m going to radio the Station. Maybe they can tell us just how badly Baker fouled up.” He sat down in a chair riveted to the deck before the powerful radio transmitter, closed a knife switch without hesitation. The gentle hum of the transmitter filled the cabin, and Ted waited as it wanned up.

His shoulders slumped, and he kept his head bent. He wanted to crawl under one of the couches and hide there. He wanted to bury his face in his hands and turn away from the eyes of the other men. He wanted to die.

“Moon rocket calling Space Station,” Forbes’s voice said into the microphone. “Hello, Space Station, this is Moon rocket. Come in, Space Station.” He paused and fiddled with one of the dials. “Hello, Space Station, Space Station, Space Station. This is Moon rocket calling Space Station. Can you hear me, Space Station?”

A brief crackle of static erupted from the loudspeaker on the bulkhead.

“Hello, Space Station,” Forbes went on, “this is Moon rocket calling. Come in, Space Station.”

There was static again, and then a voice intruded into the static, a voice that sounded distant. It wavered and fell, distorted enormously, but it was intelligible. “Hello, Moon rocket, this is Space Station. Come in, Moon rocket.”

“Lieutenant Forbes on Moon rocket reporting crash landing. Do you read me, Space Station?”

“We read you, Moon rocket. State your message.”

“Time: 2134. Repeat, 2134. Estimated time of landing: 2130. Report crash landing. Damage unknown. Assume landing stilts and blasting tubes damaged. Present position unknown. Request approximate position. Over.”

“Hello, Forbes. This is General Pepper. Any casualties aboard? Over.”

“Yes, sir. Captain Merola suffered head injury during flight. He’s still in a state of unconsciousness. Over.”

“That boy with you? Baker? Over.”

“Yes, sir. Over.”

Ted waited breathlessly as a burst of static splintered the silence.

“Just tell him he’ll be in hot water when you get back here, Forbes. Now stand by while I get that fix you requested.”

“Roger.”

Ted expected Forbes to smile at the news. Instead, Forbes kept his eyes on the transmitter readings, apparently too occupied to allow Ted’s misfortune to disturb him. Ted sighed heavily. Hot water, the general had said.

“Hello, Forbes. Have you got a map there? Over.”

“Stand by, sir.” Forbes snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the drawers. Dr. Phelps quickly opened the drawer and pulled out a sheaf of maps. He brought these to Forbes, and the lieutenant spread them on the table before him. “Yes, sir, I’ve got a map. Over.”

“We tracked you all the way up, Forbes. Figured something was wrong when you began turnover ahead of schedule. Have you got a pencil? Over.”

“Yes, sir. Over.”

“All right, start marking. Your supplies are in Mare Imbrium, over on the Eastern half of the Moon. Three miles east of the crater Archimedes. Have you got that point?”

“Stand by, sir. Yes, yes, here it is. Over.”

“All right, mark it. Those are your supplies.”

“Roger. And where are we, sir?”

There was a long pause. The static crackled into the compartment as they waited for the general’s voice again.

“You’re not going to like this, Forbes. We tracked you as you came down, and we’re pretty sure this is the ship we’ve got in the screens now. At any rate, it’s in the area you were falling toward.”

“I see, sir. And where is that?”

“You’re in Mare Crisium.”

“Roger. Stand by, sir.” Forbes bent over the map studying it. He scratched his head, then, and picked up the microphone. “I can’t seem to locate that, sir.”

“Where are you looking, Forbes?”

“Well, quite a ways over to the West. I figure we crashed in darkness and...”

“How far over?”

“The area around Mare Serenitatis.”

“You’re not far enough over, Forbes. Keep going. You’re almost on the Western rim.”

“Stand by, sir.” Forbes consulted the map again, and then seemed to recoil from the microphone. “Did you say Mare Crisium, sir?”

“You’ve found it?”

“Yes, sir. But... but it’s... it’s quite a distance from...”

“You’re approximately one thousand miles from the supplies, Forbes. Mark your position in the center of Mare Crisium.”

Forbes’s hand moved to the map, and he scribbled something onto its surface.

“I’ve marked it, sir.”

“Have you got both positions marked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

Forbes looked at the map, sighing heavily.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “It looks very bad.”

“I’m contacting Earth now, Forbes,” the general said. “I’m trying to see what we can do about getting more supplies to you. Stand by for radio contact in an hour. And keep your chin up.”

“Roger. Out.”

Forbes opened the knife switch, and the transmitter clicked off. Without the hum, it was suddenly very quiet in the cabin.

Forbes swung the swivel chair around and folded his hands in his lap. “Well,” he said, “you heard.”

“They’ll get supplies to us,” Dr. Gehardt said confidently.

“I’m not so sure.”

“It should be simple,” Dr. Phelps put in. “They wouldn’t need a crew. Just unmanned rockets like the ones that took the other supplies here.”

“Mm-m-m,” Forbes murmured. He held out the map. “Take a look at this.”

The men studied the map, and Forbes shook his head forlornly. “A thousand miles,” he said. “And he was probably giving it to us in round figures. It’s probably more than that.”

“Why worry about the distance?” Dr. Gehardt asked. “If they send up more supplies, we can forget about the others.”

“Sure. If.”

“Is there a chance they won’t?”

“I don’t know. There must be some doubt or the Old Man wouldn’t have had to call Earth.”

“That’s true,” Dr. Phelps said.

Ted stood by the viewport, listening. He was filled with a deep sadness, a sadness that permeated every bone in his body. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that his motives had been purely unselfish, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that it had been he who had crashed the ship and tossed them into their present position. He wanted to go to Forbes and say, “Sir, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, more sorry than you can know. But I really tried my best, and I really did want to help and...”

No. No, he could never do that. In the first place, Forbes wouldn’t believe him for a moment. He couldn’t very well blame the lieutenant, although he felt Forbes’s judgment had been a trifle too hasty. It was something like condemning a man to be hanged before he’d been given a trial. Forbes had based his entire case on a batch of innocent questions Ted had asked.

He had started with the basic assumption that Ted willingly and wilfully considered taking Jack’s place on the Moon rocket. From there, his theory had snowballed with remarkable rapidity, until he further assumed that Ted had deliberately kayoed Jack and had come aboard in his place. After that, Forbes’s imagination had taken over completely, and there were no limits to the extent of his accusations. Why, Ted wouldn’t be surprised if Forbes secretly blamed him for Merola’s injury... as... as a ruse... a trick to give Ted a chance at landing the ship!

Well, he was here, and he’d have to make the best of it. Of one thing he was certain. He could not convince Forbes of his honest intentions by any amount of talking, Forbes had made up his mind, and Ted appeared in that mind as a double-dyed villain.

In a way, he was sorry about the ill feeling Forbes carried for him, sorrier in a way that went beyond his own personal discomfort. Forbes had seemed like a nice guy, a person Ted would have enjoyed knowing better. Him and Merola. On the brief trip to the Space Station, he had found himself admiring the way these two men seemed to complement each other. He somehow sensed that a friendship such as theirs was a rare combination, and he felt himself wishing he could somehow be included in the duet. It was almost as if Forbes and Merola thought with the same mind. Whenever Merola started the first line of a gag, Forbes would grin in anticipation, almost as if he knew the punch line from the start. They seemed to share a secret thing between them, a mutual bond that required neither words nor gestures to make meanings clear.

Ted would have liked to explore this bond more fully and eventually become a friend of both men.

It seemed that that was impossible now.

A number of things seemed impossible now. The general’s words. What had he meant, Ted wondered. Washout, expulsion from the Academy? Or worse? What could be worse? What could be worse than washout in your senior year?

Or should he be worrying about washout? Would he ever get back to the Station to face court-martial?

Survival.

Survival on the Moon. Yes, that was another problem, a definite...

“Baker!”

It was Forbes’s voice. Ted turned from the viewport, ready for whatever was coming next.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re going outside, Baker.”

“Very good, sir.”

“You’re coming with us,” Forbes said.

“Sir?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you wondering why I’m allowing you to set foot on the Moon? Are you wondering why I’m allowing you that pleasure and honor?”

“Yes, sir,” Ted said. “I am a bit surprised.”

“It’s very simple, Baker. Very simple. George... Captain Merola... is a sick man. This ship is a valuable one with millions of dollars worth of equipment in it. Do you understand now?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid...”

“I don’t trust you, Baker. I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can throw the Moon. And I certainly won’t trust you in the same ship with my best friend and a dozen dials and gadgets you can fool with. In other words, Baker, I can’t leave the rat in his trap, so I’m taking him with me. Now do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Ted’s voice was small, and he could feel the blood rushing to his face. He stared down at the deck.

“Then get into a space suit, and make it fast. We’re going outside in about five minutes!”