Chapter 12 Two Against the Night

The time passed rapidly. There was much to be done, and they wasted no time getting started. Forbes took Dr. Gehardt and Dr. Phelps outside to show them the extent of the damage and to explain the repairs needed. The doctors wanted to start the repair work at once, but Forbes told them there’d be plenty of time after the trip to the supply dump had been started.

Besides, a sled had to be built, a sled strong enough to carry fourteen cylinders of oxygen. These, together with the two tanks Ted and Forbes would be carrying on their backs when they left, would insure enough for the trip to the dump — providing there was no overexcessive delay.

The men got to work at once, building the sled outside the ship in the bitter cold. The temperature kept dropping steadily as night moved its way across the barren satellite.

On the first day they recorded the temperature at -219°. That was when they began building the sled.

On the second day the temperature dropped to -223°.

On the third day with the temperature at -230°, they finished the sled and began stacking the oxygen cylinders, passing them down the side of the ship with slender wire cables. They strapped the cylinders to the sled, using a buckle arrangement which could be loosened or tightened when wearing heavy gloves. The sled was a simple affair with four crossbars welded onto two runners. It would not be difficult to pull it across the face of the Moon, and the men were counting on the light gravity for help.

On the morning of the fourth day — morning only because the ship’s chrono said 0730, even though it was still “night” on the Moon — Ted and Forbes left the ship. The temperature outside was 238° below zero.

The insides of their helmets were lined with containers of hot chocolate and vitamin concentrates. The rubber tubes on the containers trailed around the inside of Ted’s helmet like a nest of garden snakes. He had only to move his head in order to reach any one of the tubes with his mouth.

Both he and Forbes wore several layers of woolen underwear beneath their coveralls. They had both put on three pairs of heavy woolen socks, tucking the legs of their coveralls into the tops of the socks. Their suit batteries sent electricity running to the coils that zigzagged through the inside lining of each suit. As long as their batteries lasted, they would be warm.

Their face plates had been sprayed with a frost-resisting chemical, and rubber ducts had been cemented in place just below the plates. These ducts were connected to small blowers which would force blasts of hot air against the face plates should these begin to freeze up.

The belts strapped around their waists carried hammers, screw drivers, pliers, rubber tape, wire.

That was the extent of their equipment — that, and the sled they would tow behind them, the sled carrying the oxygen to sustain them on their trip.

They paused outside the ship, and Ted looked up at the viewport. Dr. Gehardt waved down. Dr. Phelps stood beside him, his features blurred by the distance.

Silently, Ted and Forbes started for the sled.

Forbes stooped down and picked up the wire tow strap.

“Let’s get something straight right from the start, Baker,” he said over the suit radio. Ted listened, knowing in a way what was coming — and fervently wishing he was wrong. “If I had my way, I’d make this trip alone rather than with you. Have you got that?”

“I’ve got it,” Ted said, surprised at the tone of his own voice.

“Good. You’ll obey orders on this trip, and the less conversation the better. All I’m interested in is getting there and back.”

“That’s all I’m interested in,” Ted said.

“Do you know the route we’re taking?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll go over it again, just to make sure.”

Forbes reached into a pouch hanging from his waist strap and pulled out a map which he unfolded clumsily. He laid a heavily gloved hand, forefinger extended, on the paper.

“We’re here in Mare Crisium. Well travel east across Mare Serenitatis, crossing just above the Caucasus Mountains. We’ll pass between the craters Aristillus and Autolycus, past Archimedes, and we should find the supply dump from there. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut out the ‘sir’ stuff, Baker. I told you once before. You don’t deserve the honor of using Air Force tradition.”

“Have it your own way,” Ted said.

“That’s just the way I will have it. Let’s get moving.” Forbes folded the map and pushed it into the pouch. Without another word, he picked up the tow strap again, waiting for Ted to get a grip on it too.

Silently, they began moving.

The sled was light, or at least it was not heavy. They pulled it with comparative ease, trying to match their strides. Ted glanced back occasionally, afraid the cylinders would tumble off the sled, but they seemed to be securely strapped. Set on the inside of his helmet, just to the left of his face plate, and partly obscured by the maze of rubber tubes jutting out of the containers, was a luminous chrono. Ted checked the time: 0735. In just twelve hours they’d have to change oxygen cylinders, ditching the spent ones. 0735, less the five minutes they’d spent studying the map. That made it 0730. They’d have to make the change at 1930.

The Moon seemed quieter than it had been on the day they claimed it. The stars spread around them in unwavering brightness, clear and sharply detailed. What an astronomer’s paradise, Ted thought. No atmosphere to cloud proper viewing. And so far up in the sky! Closer to the planets than Man had ever been. “The gateway to interplanetary flight,” Jack had said. If the trip were a success. Ted thought of Jack now, wondering what was going on at the Space Station. He tried to picture the situation as it would be if Jack had made the trip as he was supposed to. Even assuming Jack’s collarbone had not withstood the strain of acceleration, what then? He consoled himself with the proposition that Dr. Phelps would now have had two injured men on his hands rather than one. Assuming, of course, that Merola would have injured himself even if Jack had been along. That was foolish. Ted certainly didn’t believe that any one factor in a series of events could be changed without subsequently changing the entire series. Jack may not have spotted the loose rivet, in which case Merola would not have attempted to fix it, in which case he would not have been injured, in which case he would have landed the rocket himself — probably with great success.

On the other hand, if the loose rivet had not been spotted, the seam might have weakened and split, in which case the entire crew might have been lost together with the ship.

It was futile to figure on what-might-have-happened-if.

Jack hadn’t been on the trip, and Ted had. The loose rivet had been discovered. Merola was injured. The rocket was damaged. And the supplies were a long way off. Those were the facts. They could not be changed unless everything leading up to them was also changed.

Ted felt himself stumbling, and he dropped the tow line in an effort to maintain his balance.

“Watch your step!” Forbes snapped.

Ted planted his feet firmly on the ground and picked up the line again. He heard Forbes exhale, the sound carrying to Ted over the radio. Forbes was probably shaking his head within his helmet, suffering with the knowledge that Ted was an unwelcome companion.

Well, Forbes could take it or leave it! Ted wasn’t particularly delighted with his presence, either.

They passed over a partially rock-covered stretch of ground, and Ted noticed that the outcroppings were unusually sharp and jagged. He wondered what would happen if one of them fell onto a sharp rock splinter, and the thought sent a chill over his flesh. With the temperature at 238° below zero, a tear in the suit would probably mean instant freezing of a part of the body. The thought caused him to glance unconsciously at the battery reading on the dial just above the chrono. It glowed in the darkness of his helmet, the fluorescent needle swinging far to the right to register a positive charge. When that needle nudged the left-hand side of the dial, they’d be in trouble. Without batteries, there’d be no heat. And without heat...

Ted shoved the thought aside.

They kept moving, traveling at a fast pace, the time ticking by as they covered mile after mile. They tried to keep the sled away from the rocks, as difficult as it was, knowing that a sharp blow might cause the metal to snap in two because of the extreme cold.

Ted studied the ground as they walked, their strides longer than they would be under normal gravity. There were countless pockmarks underfoot, hundreds upon hundreds of craters of different sizes and shapes.

Ted knew it was the loose custom to call any craterlike object on the Moon a “crater.” He also knew, however, that there were a great many types within this loose classification.

The mountain-walled plains were the largest, with Archimedes being a good example of this type. A shiver of apprehension shot through his body as he realized he would soon be seeing this well-known crater with its fifty-mile diameter — if they reached the supplies.

There was always that big if.

He tried not to think of this. He thought of the ship, and he thought of the Space Station, and he thought of the Academy. Colonel York popped into his head again, and he smiled inside his helmet as he thought of the old man. Wouldn’t the colonel have loved this? Wouldn’t he have hopped for joy to be seeing the various formations he’d taught about day after day.

The mountain-ringed plains, smaller in diameter than the “walled” type, and surrounded with circular ramparts as opposed to the only roughly circular or polygonal shape of the walled type.

Or the crater-rings. Wouldn’t Colonel York love to see one of those.

“Memorize this!” he would shout to the class. “A crater-ring is anywhere from 3 to 10 miles in diameter, with slightly elevated walls and well-depressed insides. Have you got that? Good! Then see if your minds can absorb another fact. The Moon is dotted with craterlets and crater-pits, each too numerous to count. These are your smallest ‘craters’ and they cover the Moon like smallpox.”

A smart man, Colonel York, and a good teacher. He sold craters to the class the way one would sell a box of candy. All sizes and shapes, an assortment to choose from.

As small as a dime or a watermelon or a fireman’s net or a circular swimming pool. As large as a city block or a county or a state. Take your choice.

I’ll choose Earth, thank you, Ted thought.

No craters with 140-mile diameters, please. And no jagged mountain peaks tearing at the sky, higher than Mt. Everest, appearing even higher on the smaller surface of the Moon. You could keep the lighter gravity, too, thanks, and welcome to it.

Earth. Just simple old Earth.

That would be a nice place to be, all right. Clouds and a blue sky, and maybe a plain of waving green grass, and butterflies, and a little brook spilling over.

“Let’s take a break,” Forbes said suddenly.

The voice startled Ted. “What?”

“I said, ‘Let’s take a break.’ I wish you’d try to catch these things the first time, Baker. I’m not fond of repetition.”

“I’m sorry,” Ted said. “I guess I was...”

“Just skip it.”

“Sure.” Ted hesitated. “Sure, whatever you say.”

“You know, Baker, I’m not sure I like your tone.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“I’m not sure I like it at all,” Forbes persisted.

“I said I was sorry, sir.” Ted felt the blood rushing to his temples.

“That’s what I mean, Baker. The way you said that just now. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.”

“That’s unfortunate, sir.”

“For you, Baker.”

“Sure, for me.” Ted shrugged his shoulders. He was getting terribly weary of listening to Forbes constantly ride him. He heard Forbes expel his breath inside his helmet, and he knew this wasn’t the end of it. He could not see too clearly through Forbes’s face plate, but he could well imagine the look on the lieutenant’s face.

“Let’s shove,” Forbes said.

He picked up the tow line and waited for Ted to pick up his end. They started off in silence, a tense wall between them, a wall intensified by the alien terrain, the sharp rocks, the silent pumice, the winking stars, the knowledge that their lives depended on the success of this trip.

The miles slid by underfoot, and the hands on the helmet chrono pointed to 1143. They kept moving, the night an endless thing ahead of them, the Moon waiting like a field of broken glass, the pointed shards of its rocks jutting out of its surface. It was getting more difficult. The sled seemed heavier somehow, and Ted could feel a fine film of sweat on his forehead, despite the bitter cold outside. For a moment he had the insane desire to rip off his helmet and wipe away the sweat. He kept thinking about it, and the desire grew until he actually raised his gloved hand and passed it over his face plate.

The stars began to annoy him. They watched the two struggling figures with aloof disdain, hanging on the horizon, wheeling overhead, steady, dead-white eyes punched into the sweeping sky. Why didn’t they stop staring? Why were they so steady? Ted longed for them to stop. With every ounce of energy in his body, he willed them to stop, willed just one lone star to go out.

He began to concentrate on the ground in an effort to take his mind off the stars. He watched the pumice rise as he pushed through it, watched it fall back silently. The ground was colored a deathly gray, like a sick old man on a bed of ashes. It flashed by rapidly as they half-ran, half-walked. Ted watched the rocks and the pockmarks, and the sand, and the pumice, and the cracks. His head began to spin.

He lifted his eyes and stared at the luminous dial of the chrono until the hands etched themselves against his retina.

1150.

1152.

1153.

On and on, across the endless wastes, across the blackness of night, on and on.

1155.

1156.

Nothing broke the stillness. Ted longed for the wail of the wind, for the gentle rustling of leaves clinging to a tree, the shrill call of a train whistle in the darkness. There were none of these.

1158.

1159.

1200.

1201.

Ted was getting weary. His neck muscles hurt from supporting the heavy helmet, and his back muscles ached from pulling the sled. His body felt confined, and he longed for the unfettered freedom of an un-space-suited body. It was getting warm inside the suit, too — much too warm for comfort. The heat of his body was adding to the heat of the coils, and the result was a torrid prison of metal and nylon and rubber. He fumbled on the breastplate of his suit, reaching for the thermostat. The fingers inside his gloved hand felt big and clumsy. Awkwardly, he lowered the control and waited for the suit to cool off a bit.

Time was a world of blackness to be crossed. Time was a series of jagged rocks to be counted. Time was a million stars.

Time fled by.

Forbes called another halt. They stopped beside a long cleft in the Moon’s surface, a fissure fully twenty feet long and three feet wide. The large crack was filled with darkness, almost like a long black finger against the gray background.

Forbes squatted on the edge of the cleft, peering down its smooth sides. Ted leaned against a rock, his oxygen cylinder resting against the ragged surface.

“Something down there,” Forbes said softly, almost to himself.

Ted didn’t answer. He closed his eyes against the stars, breathing deeply of the oxygen that flowed into his helmet.

“There’s something down there, Baker!”

There was an undercurrent of excitement in Forbes’s voice that caused Ted’s eyes to pop open quickly.

“What?”

“On the bottom of this fissure. Something... something... green.”

Ted scrambled to his feet and walked rapidly to the edge of the cleft. Forbes was already stretched out on the ground, stomach down, his hands clinging to the cleft as he stared into its murky depth.

“Are you sure?” Ted asked.

“I’m going down there,” Forbes replied.

“Wait a second! You don’t even know how deep it is.”

“I can see the bottom, and there’s something green covering it. I think it’s life, Baker.”

“Life?”

“Life, life!” Forbes uncoiled a spool of wire from his belt. He attached one end to a loop in the belt and swung the other end around a sharply jutting rock near the edge of the cleft. “Hold this end, Baker. I’m going down.”

Ted pushed the wire through a ring in his own belt as Forbes dropped his legs into the yawning chasm. He clung to the lip with gloved hands as he studied the sides of the cleft for another foothold. He moved his hands then and began moving deeper into the fissure. The blackness swallowed him up instantly.

Ted paid out the wire, watching the top of Forbes’s helmet.

“Bottom,” Forbes called. There was a moment of silence, and then Forbes shouted, “Frost, Baker! There’s frost down here.”

Ted felt his heart lurch against his ribs. “That means water.”

“I’ve found something, Baker. By jumping Jehoshaphat, this is really something!”

“What is it?” Ted swallowed hard, waiting.

“I’m coming up. Give me room. I’m going to try a jump.”

Ted backed away, his eyes glued to the fissure. He could hear Forbes’s frantic breathing over the radio, could sense the lieutenant’s excitement like an electric shock that ran between them. Forbes suddenly sailed out of the cleft, dropping to the ground several feet in front of Ted. He fell to his hands and knees, then quickly rose.

“Look! Take a look at this!”

He opened his glove, and a bright spot of green appeared against the palm of his hand.

It was small, its leaves pulled in tightly around it. It was dark green — although the color may have seemed darker because of Ted’s face plate — and it seemed to be curled up into a tight ball as protection against the cold. The roots were torn where Forbes had ripped it from the rocks. But it was unmistakably green, unmistakably alive!

“A plant,” Ted murmured.

He lifted his head, and for an instant — despite the darkened face plates — he thought he detected a spark of rapport in Forbes’s eyes.

“Life,” Forbes said, his voice hushed in awe. “Life, Baker. Life on the Moon. Life.”

“In spite of the extreme heat and cold,” Ted said. “Life.”

“It was under a jutting ledge,” Forbes said, “growing close to the wall. Probably not enough sun reaches it to burn it out, and there’s just enough water to keep it going. But do you know what this means, Baker? Life on the Moon. By jumping Jehoshaphat we’ve found life!”

He took a step closer to Ted, and he seemed almost ready to embrace him. He stopped, hesitated for a moment like a man on the edge of a diving board.

He stood there in indecision, his eyes glowing behind the darkened face plate, the tiny plant in the center of his open, outstretched hand.

That was when the meteors began to fall.