The Past Through Tomorrow Page 30

  Mclntyre pushed back his chair. “Come on, Charlie, if you’re ready.”

  “O.K.”

  They all got up. Harriman started to speak, then grabbed at his chest, his face a dead grey-white.

  “Catch him, Mac!”

  “Where’s his medicine?”

  “In his vest pocket.”

  They eased him over to a couch, broke a small glass capsule in a handkerchief, and held it under his nose. The volatile released by the capsule seemed to bring a little color into his face. They did what little they could for him, then waited for him to regain consciousness.

  Charlie broke the uneasy silence. “Mac, we ain’t going through with this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s murder. He’ll never stand up under the initial acceleration.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s what he wants to do. You heard him.”

  “But we oughtn’t to let him.”

  “Why not. It’s neither your business, nor the business of this damn paternalistic government, to tell a man not to risk his life doing what he really wants to do.”

  “All the same, I don’t feel right about it. He’s such a swell old duck.”

  “Then what d’yuh want to do with him—send him back to Kansas City so those old harpies can shut him up in a laughing academy till he dies of a broken heart?”

  “N-no-o-o-not that.”

  “Get out there, and make your set-up for those test runs. I’ll be along.”

  A wide-tired desert runabout rolled in the ranch yard gate the next morning and stopped in front of the house. A heavy-set man with a firm, but kindly, face climbed out and spoke to Mclntyre, who approached to meet him.

  “You James Mclntyre?”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m the deputy federal marshal hereabouts. I got a warrant for your arrest.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Conspiracy to violate the Space Precautionary Act.”

  Charlie joined the pair. “What’s up, Mac?”

  The deputy answered. “You’d be Charles Cummings, I guess. Warrant here for you! Got one for a man named Harriman, too, and a court order to put seals on your space ship.”

  “We’ve no space ship.”

  “What d’yuh keep in that big shed?”

  “Strata yacht.”

  “So? Well, I’ll put seals on her until a space ship comes along. Where’s Harriman?”

  “Right in there.” Charlie obliged by pointing, ignoring Mclntyre’s scowl.

  The deputy turned his head. Charlie couldn’t have missed the button by a fraction of an inch for the deputy collapsed quietly to the ground. Charlie stood over him, rubbing his knuckles and mourning.

  “Damn it to hell—that’s the finger I broke playing shortstop. I’m always hurting that finger.”

  “Get Pop into the cabin,” Mac cut him short, “and strap him into his hammock.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  They dragged the ship by tractor out of the hangar, turned, and went out the desert plain to find elbow room for the take-off. They climbed in. Mclntyre saw the deputy from his starboard conning port. He was staring disconsolately after them.

  Mclntyre fastened his safety belt, settled his corset, and spoke into the engine room speaking tube. “All set, Charlie?”

  “All set, Skipper. But you can’t raise ship yet, Mac— She ain’t named!”

  “No time for your superstitions!”

  Harriman’s thin voice reached them. “Call her the Lunatic— It’s the only appropriate name!”

  Mclntyre settled his head into the pads, punched two keys, then three more in rapid succession, and the Lunatic raised ground.

  “How are you, Pop?”

  Charlie searched the old man’s face anxiously. Harriman licked his lips and managed to speak. “Doing fine, son. Couldn’t be better.”

  “The acceleration is over; it won’t be so bad from here on. I’ll unstrap you so you can wiggle around a little. But I think you’d better stay in the hammock.” He tugged at buckles. Harriman partially repressed a groan.

  “What is it, Pop?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just go easy on that side.”

  Charlie ran his fingers over the old man’s side with the sure, delicate touch of a mechanic. “You ain’t foolin‘ me none, Pop. But there isn’t much I can do until we ground.”

  “Charlie—”

  “Yes, Pop?”

  “Can’t I move to a port? I want to watch the Earth.”

  “Ain’t nothin‘ to see yet; the ship hides it. As soon as we turn ship, I’ll move you. Tell you what; I’ll give you a sleepy pill, and then wake you when we do.”

  “No!”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll stay awake.”

  “Just as you say, Pop.”

  Charlie clambered monkey fashion to the nose of the ship, and anchored to the gymbals of the pilot’s chair. Mclntyre questioned him with his eyes.

  “Yeah, he’s alive all right,” Charlie told him, “but he’s in bad shape.”

  “How bad?”

  “Couple of cracked ribs anyhow. I don’t know what else. I don’t know whether he’ll last out the trip, Mac. His heart was pounding something awful.”

  “He’ll last, Charlie. He’s tough.”

  “Tough? He’s delicate as a canary.”

  “I don’t mean that. He’s tough way down inside—where it counts.”

  “Just the same you’d better set her down awful easy if you want to ground with a full complement aboard.”

  “I will. I’ll make one full swing around the Moon and ease her in on an involute approach curve. We’ve got enough fuel, I think.”

  They were now in a free orbit; after Mclntyre turned ship, Charlie went back, unslung the hammock, and moved Harriman, hammock and all, to a side port. Mclntyre steadied the ship about a transverse axis so that the tail pointed toward the sun, then gave a short blast on two tangential jets opposed in couple to cause the ship to spin slowly about her longitudinal axis, and thereby create a slight artificial gravity. The initial weightlessness when coasting commenced had knotted the old man with the characteristic nausea of free flight, and the pilot wished to save his passenger as much discomfort as possible.

  But Harriman was not concerned with the condition of his stomach.

  There it was, all as he had imagined it so many times. The Moon swung majestically past the view port, wider than he had ever seen it before, all of her familiar features cameo clear. She gave way to the Earth as the ship continued its slow swing, the Earth itself as he had envisioned her, appearing like a noble moon, many times as wide as the Moon appears to the Earth-bound, and more luscious, more sensuously beautiful than the silver Moon could be. It was sunset near the Atlantic seaboard—the line of shadow cut down the coast line of North America, slashed through Cuba, and obscured all but the west coast of South America. He savored the mellow blue of the Pacific Ocean, felt the texture of the soft green and brown of the continents, admired the blue-white cold of the polar caps. Canada and the northern states were obscured by cloud, a vast low pressure area that spread across the continent. It shone with an even more satisfactory dazzling white than the polar caps.

  As the ship swung slowly around, Earth would pass from view, and the stars would march across the port—the same stars he had always known, but steady, brighter, and unwinking against a screen of perfect, live black. Then the Moon would swim into view again to claim his thoughts.

  He was serenely happy in a fashion not given to most men, even in a long lifetime. He felt as if he were every man who has ever lived, looked up at the stars, and longed.

  As the long hours came and went he watched and dozed and dreamed. At least once he must have fallen into deep sleep, or possibly delirium, for he came to with a start, thinking that his wife, Charlotte, was calling to him. “Delos!” the voice had said. “Delos! Come in from there! You’ll catch your death of cold in that night air.”

 
; Poor Charlotte! She had been a good wife to him, a good wife. He was quite sure that her only regret in dying had been her fear that he could not take proper care of himself. It had not been her fault that she had not shared his dream, and his need.

  Charlie rigged the hammock in such a fashion that Harriman could watch from the starboard port when they swung around the far face of the Moon. He picked out the landmarks made familiar to him by a thousand photographs with nostalgic pleasure, as if he were returning to his own country. Mclntyre brought her slowly down as they came back around to the Earthward face, and prepared to land east of Mare Fecunditatis, about ten miles from Luna City.

  It was not a bad landing, all things considered. He had to land without coaching from the ground, and he had no second pilot to watch the radar for him. In his anxiety to make it gentle he missed his destination by some thirty miles, but he did his cold-sober best. But at that it was bumpy.

  As they grounded and the pumice dust settled around them, Charlie came up to the control station.

  “How’s our passenger?” Mac demanded.

  “I’ll see, but I wouldn’t make any bets. That landing stunk, Mac.”

  “Damn it, I did my best.”

  “I know you did, Skipper. Forget it.”

  But the passenger was alive and conscious although bleeding from the nose and with a pink foam on his lips. He was feebly trying to get himself out of his cocoon. They helped him, working together.

  “Where are the vacuum suits?” was his first remark.

  “Steady, Mr. Harriman. You can’t go out there yet. We’ve got to give you some first aid.”

  “Get me that suit! First aid can wait.”

  Silently they did as he ordered. His left leg was practically useless, and they had to help him through the lock, one on each side. But with his inconsiderable mass having a lunar weight of only twenty pounds, he was no burden. They found a place some fifty yards from the ship where they could prop him up and let him look, a chunk of scoria supporting his head.

  Mclntyre put his helmet against the old man’s and spoke. “We’ll leave you here to enjoy the view while we get ready for the trek into town. It’s a forty-miler, pretty near, and we’ll have to break out spare air bottles and rations and stuff. We’ll be back soon.”

  Harriman nodded without answering, and squeezed their gauntlets with a grip that was surprisingly strong.

  He sat very quietly, rubbing his hands against the soil of the Moon and sensing the curiously light pressure of his body against the ground. At long last there was peace in his heart. His hurts had ceased to pain him. He was where he had longed to be—he had followed his need. Over the western horizon hung the Earth at last quarter, a green-blue giant moon. Overhead the Sun shone down from a black and starry sky. And underneath the Moon, the soil of the Moon itself. He was on the Moon!

  He lay back still while a bath of content flowed over him like a tide at flood, and soaked to his very marrow.

  His attention strayed momentarily, and he thought once again that his name was called. Silly, he thought, I’m getting old—my mind wanders.

  Back in the cabin Charlie and Mac were rigging shoulder yokes on a stretcher. “There. That will do,” Mac commented. “We’d better stir Pop out; we ought to be going.”

  “I’ll get him,” Charlie replied. “I’ll just pick him up and carry him. He don’t weigh nothing.”

  Charlie was gone longer than Mclntyre had expected him to be. He returned alone. Mac waited for him to close the lock, and swing back his helmet. “Trouble?”

  “Never mind the stretcher, Skipper. We won’t be needin‘ it.

  “Yeah, I mean it,” he continued. “Pop’s done for. I did what was necessary.”

  Mclntyre bent down without a word and picked up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash. Charlie followed his example. Then they swung the spare air bottles over their shoulders, and passed out through the lock.

  They didn’t bother to close the outer door of the lock behind them.

  The Long Watch

  “Nine ships blasted off from Moon Base. Once in space, eight of them formed a globe around the smallest. They held this formation all the way to Earth.

  “The small ship displayed the insignia of an admiral—yet there was no living thing of any sort in her. She was not even a passenger ship, but a drone, a robot ship intended for radioactive cargo. This trip she carried nothing but a lead coffin—and a Geiger counter that was never quiet.”

  —from the editorial After

  Ten Years, film 38, 17 June

  2009, Archives of the N. Y.

  Times

  Johnny Dahlquist blew smoke at the Geiger counter. He grinned wryly and tried it again. His whole body was radioactive by now. Even his breath, the smoke from his cigarette, could make the Geiger counter scream. How long had he been here? Time doesn’t mean much on the Moon. Two days? Three? A week? He let his mind run back: the last clearly marked time in his mind was when the Executive Officer had sent for him, right after breakfast—

  “Lieutenant Dahlquist, reporting to the Executive Officer.” Colonel Towers looked up. “Ah, John Ezra. Sit down, Johnny. Cigarette?” Johnny sat down, mystified but flattered. He admired Colonel Towers, for his brilliance, his ability to dominate, and for his battle record. Johnny had no battle record; he had been commissioned on completing his doctor’s degree in nuclear physics and was now junior bomb officer of Moon Base.

  The Colonel wanted to talk politics; Johnny was puzzled. Finally Towers had come to the point; it was not safe (so he said) to leave control of the world in political hands; power must be held by a scientifically selected group. In short—the Patrol.

  Johnny was startled rather than shocked. As an abstract idea, Towers’ notion sounded plausible. The League of Nations had folded up; what would keep the United Nations from breaking up, too, and thus lead to another World War. “And you know how bad such a war would be, Johnny.”

  Johnny agreed. Towers said he was glad that Johnny got the point. The senior bomb officer could handle the work, but it was better to have both specialists.

  Johnny sat up with a jerk. “You are going to do something about it?” He had thought the Exec was just talking.

  Towers smiled. “We’re not politicians; we don’t just talk. We act.”

  Johnny whistled. “When does this start?”

  Towers flipped a switch. Johnny was startled to hear his own voice, then identified the recorded conversation as having taken place in the junior officers’ messroom. A political argument he remembered, which he had walked out on… a good thing, too! But being spied on annoyed him.

  Towers switched it o3. “We have acted,” he said. “We know who is safe and who isn’t. Take Kelly—” He waved at the loudspeaker. “Kelly is politically unreliable. You noticed he wasn’t at breakfast?”

  “Huh? I thought he was on watch.”

  “Kelly’s watch-standing days are over. Oh, relax; he isn’t hurt.”

  Johnny thought this over. “Which list am I on?” he asked. “Safe or unsafe?”

  “Your name has a question mark after it. But I have said all along that you could be depended on.” He grinned engagingly. “You won’t make a liar of me, Johnny?”

  Dahlquist didn’t answer; Towers said sharply, “Come now—what do you think of it? Speak up.”

  “Well, if you ask me, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. While it’s true that Moon Base controls the Earth, Moon Base itself is a sitting duck for a ship. One bomb—blooie!”

  Towers picked up a message form and handed it over; it read: I HAVE YOUR CLEAN LAUNDRY—ZACK. “That means every bomb in the Trygve Lie has been put out of commission. I have reports from every ship we need worry about.” He stood up. “Think it over and see me after lunch. Major Morgan needs your help right away to change control frequencies on the bombs.”

  “The control frequencies?”

  “Naturally, i We don’t want the bombs jammed before they reach
their targets.”

  “What? You said the idea was to prevent war.”

  Towers brushed it aside. “There won’t be a war—just a psychological demonstration, an unimportant town or two. A little bloodletting to save an all-out war. Simple arithmetic.”

  He put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “You aren’t squeamish, or you wouldn’t be a bomb officer. Think of it as a surgical operation. And think of your family.”

  Johnny Dahlquist had been thinking of his family. “Please, sir, I want to see the Commanding Officer.”

  Towers frowned. “The Commodore is not available. As you know, I speak for him. See me again—after lunch.”

  The Commodore was decidedly not available; the Commodore was dead. But Johnny did not know that.

  Dahlquist walked back to the messroom, bought cigarettes, sat down and had a smoke. He got up, crushed out the butt, and headed for the Base’s west airlock. There he got into his space suit and went to the lockmaster. “Open her up, Smitty.”

  The marine looked surprised. “Can’t let anyone out on the surface without word from Colonel Towers, sir. Hadn’t you heard?”

  “Oh, yes! Give me your order book.” Dahlquist took it, wrote a pass for himself, and signed it “by direction of Colonel Towers.” He added, “Better call the Executive Officer and check it.”

  The lockmaster read it and stuck the book in his pocket. “Oh, no, Lieutenant. Your word’s good.”

  “Hate to disturb the Executive Officer, eh? Don’t blame you.” He stepped in, closed the inner door, and waited for the air to be sucked out.

  Out on the Moon’s surface he blinked at the light and hurried to the track-rocket terminus; a car was waiting. He squeezed in, pulled down the hood, and punched the starting button. The rocket car flung itself at the hills, dived through and came out on a plain studded with projectile rockets, like candles on a cake. Quickly it dived into a second tunnel through more hills. There was a stomach-wrenching deceleration and the car stopped at the underground atom-bomb armory.