the top of the cave-bubble. Peter jumped the short distance remaining,
catching a grip on the edge of the hole in the cave ceiling. He pulled
himself up, then dropped his nylon cord down for Robin to grasp and
help himself up.
Up above there was still another small bubble, broken on one side. A
whole series of broken bubbles lay revealed, and they walked along this
section gingerly. This area was greatly cracked and seamed. It was
clear to them that there was a possibility of a fall-in.
Beyond that group they came to another break leading upward, and again
they moved on. Now Robin found himself breathing very heavily. "I'm
getting very tired," he gasped at last.
Peter stopped. They were still in the break and a severe slope was
rising before them. "It's the air pressure. It's getting quite low
already. You've been used to the low pressure of the bubbles below, as
you tell me, but we are close to the surface and the limited amount
of air sealed in this particular bubble-system is thinning beyond
the safety point. We'll have to go slow and rest often. I don't want
to have to use our oxygen supplies until we are at the limit of our
natural abilities."
Robin finally caught his breath, felt power returning. Now the two
pushed on, going very carefully and slowly, with rests every few steps.
The steep rise ended at a narrow opening. Peter paused here, motioned
to Robin to join him. "This is the crisis point," he said. "Listen."
Robin strained his ears. He was aware of the pounding of his heart
struggling for oxygen. He was aware of a ringing in his ears from the
low pressure. But now he heard over that a thin whistling, a high,
steady rustling whistle coming from somewhere across the narrow, long
cave he was looking in upon.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"A most unusual phenomenon," whispered Peter back. "The only thing that
keeps the air in all this subterranean region from being sucked away to
the surface. It's a volcanic current of hot gas, racing through this
long channel at tremendous speed. It must come up from somewhere in the
still-warm interior; it must be rushing to some vast cold spot below.
But it serves as an effective curtain cutting off the stale air on this
side from the near-vacuum of the surface. Its density, velocity, and
heat perform the miracle."
Peter shone the lamp across and down the cave. The passage cleared a
long, tunnellike channel which ran down into darkness on one side and
away into equal darkness on the other. Only a few yards across from
them he could see the gray surface of the wall. There seemed to be
nothing else except the whistling noise.
"Edge along the wall here carefully," said Peter, and started off. He
kept one shoulder rubbing the wall near them and walked carefully down
the passage.
Robin edged out, following him closely. He felt no movement of air,
yet he detected a faint trace of warmth on his outer side. Somewhere,
invisible to him, that cataract of volcanic air was flowing. Was it a
few feet or a fraction of an inch? He could not tell.
The wall bellied wider a little, allowing a chance to get farther away
from the unseen wind. Peter was waiting here. "I think we'd better
adjust our space equipment now. We have a short way to go, then we'll
have to fight our way across that air blast. There's an opening to the
surface at one point nearby. Once we cross the wind and get to it,
we'll be outside."
Robin let down his pack. Peter examined Robin's equipment again,
looking worried. He shook his head once or twice. "I hope it works out
all right, but some changes will have to be made."
He took the big bladder Robin had constructed as an air bag. "This
won't work, but it will come in handy in a different way." He took
Robin's pocket knife and began to cut the big sack apart to make thin
long strips of leather. When he had finished with that, he looked over
at Robin and said:
"Now you'll have to wind these strips around you as tight as you can.
Begin as high up on your chest as possible, and go on down. Wind them
around your arms and legs, around your fingers, if possible. Don't
undress, but wind the strips over your clothes. Make them tight. I'll
help you."
As they worked to do so, Peter explained further. "Having an air helmet
is not enough for space. The pressure of your blood and the gases
in your system will make it impossible for you to breathe or move,
if your body is not tightly encased. A real space suit like mine is
pressurized, built with a layer of air pockets all over, which increase
their pressure in proportion to the decrease outside. But if you don't
have this pressure, even having air around your head will not help. So
make those bandages tight, as tight as you can without stopping your
breathing completely."
They worked on, winding the leather around and around, until Robin felt
as if he were being encased in a strait jacket, felt like a living
mummy. Strips were wrapped around his fingers under his gloves, his
gloves fitting over them and further strapped.
Next Peter strapped one of his three oxygen tanks to Robin's back. "I
hope this will work well enough to keep you breathing until we reach
the rocket. Fortunately you made your helmet deep enough to come down
far over your shoulders. I can work this air tube up high enough for
you to grasp the end in your mouth. The air will force its way into
your lungs. You'll have to struggle to force your exhalation out of
your nose. It's difficult, especially the first time, but you'll have
to cope with it."
As he held the helmet preparatory to putting it over Robin's head,
he gave him some last-minute instructions. "We won't be able to
communicate once I get this on you. You've no radio and your mouth will
be full anyway. So listen carefully.
"The rocket is about a hundred yards away. I'll lead the way, and I'll
tie this cord around your waist so you won't lose me. Follow me as
close as you can. There's a possibility that your glass plate may fog
up or ice over from the water vapor inside your helmet. If it does,
hang on to the cord and keep moving after me! But don't stop ... and
don't give up! All set?"
Robin's heart was beating fast, he felt strange and stifled in his
bindings. This was the zero instant. He nodded, held out his hand.
Peter grasped it, shook it. "When you're all set, follow me across the
wind stream. It's powerful--don't let it throw you."
Robin put the end of the air tube in his mouth. Peter pushed the
homemade helmet down over his head, secured it tightly, almost
painfully, until no space was left for air to escape. Then Peter
reached behind Robin to the small tank strapped there and turned a
petcock.
Instantly Robin started to choke as he felt something being rammed down
his lungs. He caught himself, recognizing that his lungs were being
forcibly inflated. He struggled to get control of his diaphragm to
expel the excess air pressure. He managed finally to do so, feeling a
whiff of air rush through his nostrils. He fought a bit more with the
unpleasant current, felt himself getting a grip on it.
Through the plate of his helmet he saw Peter watching him anxiously.
Then Peter rapidly tied the nylon cord around his own waist, let it out
a few feet, and tied the other end around Robin's. Peter snapped shut
the visor of his own helmet, touched the air controls of his own suit,
and nodding to Robin, stepped out into the tunnel.
Robin followed closely, conscious of the tight, restricting bands,
still fighting the unpleasant pressure of the air tube blowing down
his lungs. Peter walked a few steps, pointed a gloved hand across the
passage, shone his light.
There was a narrow black gap across there. Through it Robin caught a
glimpse of bright white specks--the stars!
Then Peter made a dash, seemed to be picked up by a giant hand and
whirled wildly across the passage. The cord tightened and Robin jumped
into the space to avoid being pulled off his feet.
He was struck at once by a terrific onrush. A hot, violent blast
slammed into him. He lost his footing, felt himself being hurled
headlong into a furious tornado. The cord leaped out, and Peter pulled
on it hard. Robin swung about, fetched up against the other side of the
wall of the cave with a bang, was pulled to his feet before he had even
started to fall, and was propelled right through the gap in the wall.
Suddenly all was still. The whistling of the wind, the roar of the
current as it struck him, had vanished. Only the sucking and rushing of
the oxygen in his own helmet could be heard. He was outside, on the
surface of the Moon at last!
The gap opened from the wall of a cliff. Above him, the cliff soared
to become a mountainous edge of a deep, wide crater. He turned his
head, but Peter was impatient. He felt the pull of the cord, turned
and followed Peter, who was moving away from the crater wall in long,
low strides, strides that ate up distance like an Earthly giant in
seven-league boots. Robin adjusted his pace, followed closely.
For a while he forgot his personal danger and simply gazed around at
the fabulous moonscape. The crater's other wall was maybe a dozen
miles away, but the thin air--the almost indetectably tenuous air that
clustered at the bottom of this crater made the distance seem nothing.
He could even make out details of the far edge.
And yet this section of the Moon was in the night-time. The sun had
passed it by. It should have been dark, pitch-dark, by the logic of the
interplanetary space. Yet it wasn't. Everything instead was bathed in
a cold greenish-blue light that covered the surface like the glow of a
half-dozen full moons.
He looked up. Directly in the center of the sky overhead was the source
of the radiation. A great glowing ball of green and blue and white,
a ball with a misty aura surrounding it, a globe that struck Robin
instantly as familiar. It was the Earth. The home world, seen in all
its glory, a giant full-moon Earth, continents and islands clearly
outlined, a glory of pale colors, poles agleam with dazzling
white ... it was a sight that momentarily stopped Robin in his tracks,
hypnotized with wonder.
The cord pulled him out of it, and on he dashed, looking about him in
the pale Earthlight.
The surface was thick with cosmic dust, here and there the rounded
domelike surface of a congealed volcanic bubble. Cracks crossed and
crisscrossed the surface, and Peter and he had to bound across many of
them. He saw rising slightly above the surface a long rill of whitish
substance, racing across the crater bottom. With a start he realized
that that must be the glasslike roof of the great cleft he had so
recently escaped from.
Above, the sky was nearly black and myriad stars shone bright from the
distance. The outlines of the surrounding mountains walled in the two
boys as if they were pygmy boxers in a gargantuan ring.
Robin was forcing the air from his nostrils, allowing the oxygen to
rush into his lungs. He began now to feel the first faint chill of
surrounding space. He realized that it must already be nearly a hundred
and fifty below zero on the surface, probably even much more than that.
He had to keep moving, keep moving.
But it was getting colder. He felt the cold penetrate him as his suit
radiated the warmth that was in it. Now he wondered what was happening
outside. Something was obscuring his view. Was it mist he was passing
through?
He had heard of mist on the Moon's surface, but he had seen none when
he had first emerged. Yet his vision was being obscured more and more
by a cloudiness. He strained his eyes, suddenly realized that the mist
was not outside, it was inside! The slight amount of vapor inside his
helmet was beginning to frost up on the inside of his face plate. What
Peter had feared was beginning to happen.
Robin missed his footing, stumbled, not having seen the little ridge
they had passed. Peter, now barely visible ahead of him, had not
stopped. Robin felt the cord tighten as he slowed down, uncertain of
where his feet were landing.
He began to feel groggy, realized that he was becoming frightened. He
gritted his teeth on the unpleasant air tube, said to himself, _Get a
hold on, stay firm. Only a few more steps to go. Hang on! Hang on!_
He conquered his panic. Blind or not, he would keep on until he passed
out. The face plate was now solid white, completely opaque. He stumbled
on, allowing the tight cord to direct him, pull him.
On and on, the journey seemed endless. Running, jumping, and bouncing,
his feet banging against unseen rocks, hitting into cracks, kicking
out, flying through space in bounds of blind horror. It was a nightmare
such as he'd never dreamed.
Then, as he came down hard and banged into something, he felt his
helmet slip a little, jog slightly. There was a _whish_ and suddenly
his face plate cleared completely. At the same instant he felt as if
his eyes would pop, while something snatched at his nose and sucked the
breath from him.
Through the clear plate he caught a wild glimpse of a large metallic
structure sticking up out of the ground. The Russian rocket, he thought
wildly. It was big like a huge bullet, gleaming brightly and polished.
He saw it nearing him, realized he was being dragged along by Peter.
He realized also that his helmet had slipped a gap, that the air within
had been sucked out, that the water vapor clogging his face plate had
been snatched out with it, and that his face was exposed. But the
oxygen tube was still in his mouth, still forcing air into him, and his
nostrils were having it sucked out almost as fast. Somehow the thin
stream of air rushing from the helmet kept his face from all the rigors
of vacuum. His eyes were bulging and paining, he felt his nose spraying
blood and a red film kept clogging the face plate and being snatched
away by the escaping air.
Then as he realized he could no longer stand the agony, he felt himself
grabbed under the shoulders, hoisted up, shoved into a small dark space
and felt through his fingers the clang of a metal door. There came a
hissing noise, and as consciousness at last oozed away from him, he
knew that they had reached the air lock of the Soviet rocket and that
his ordeal was over.
_17. Moon Calling Earth_
The impression of a damp cloth moving gently over his face was Robin's
first sensation on recovering his senses. He opened his eyes to find
Peter leaning over him, carefully mopping away the soreness from his
nose and face. Robin's eyes hurt and he blinked several times, each
time feeling their rawness.
"Easy does it," said Peter, smiling. "Your eyes are very bloodshot, but
fortunately there's no real damage. You couldn't have been exposed to
the outside for more than a few seconds. Nosebleed's stopped, too."
Robin raised his head, feeling a little dizzy and weak at first. He
was lying in a hammock slung across the narrow space of the rocket's
tiny cabin. He took in the limited quarters slowly, while flexing his
muscles to discover other points of sensitivity. His clothing had been
removed, the tight bandaging unwrapped. He was wearing some sort of
loose aviation coverall that his brother had dressed him in.
"Have I been out long?" Robin asked, rising to a sitting position.
"Maybe a half-hour," said his brother. "Mostly shock and overexertion,
I guess. You've got some bruises on your shins and feet, but nothing
that should stop you. Feel like some hot food? Real Earth food?"
Robin was suddenly hungry and the memories of a hundred forgotten foods
flooded his senses. He nodded, and greedily attacked the full mess kit
that his brother had been heating. It contained merely some sort of
frankfurter, some canned potato, a chunk of black bread, and a cup of
something that must have been condensed cabbage soup ... but to Robin
it was the best banquet he'd had in many months. For the first time he
ate meat that wasn't rabbit or a Moon creature, vegetable that wasn't
Moontree fruit. His tongue reveled in the flavors. A glass of hot tea
was the final sensation.
Refreshed, he looked around. The little cabin, occupying the entire
nose of the rocket, must have been a tight squeeze indeed for a
three-man crew. The controls and the pilot's seat occupied a good
section of it. There was space for only two hammocks, which were
obviously not to be spread out except when taking off or sleeping, and
Peter was rolling up the one in which Robin had been resting. There was
a built-in electric grid, a nozzle from which water was piped, a large
number of observational and recording instruments, a couple of folding
seats, nothing much else. Several thick glass bull's-eye windows were
set in a circle around the nose, at a level with the pilot's eyes.
Light came from one large electric bulb hanging in the nose of the
ship. The whole cabin was tilted over at an angle, the result of the
crash.
"I'm surprised that everything is in such good condition," said Robin.
"I had expected to see a complete ruin."
"Well," said Peter, "I've got to admit that Von Borck was definitely a
good pilot. The crash was probably not his fault. We were actually not
supposed to land. Our orders were to try to circle the Moon in a narrow
orbit, then return. We were to land only if Von Borck was sure he could
do it and get away again.
"What happened though was that after we had crossed the dividing line
in space where the Moon's pull equaled the Earth's pull, our gyroscopic
controls jammed. Von Borck couldn't turn the rockets in our rear to
the indicated direction. We struggled with the gyro for about forty
minutes, even going outside to get at the airless tube section beneath
this sealed cabin. When we finally got the controls operating, it was
far too late to attempt to establish an orbit. Instead, Von Borck
did the next best thing--he decided to attempt a direct landing. He
reversed the rocket entirely, slowed us down and came down in an
effort to land on his jets. It's a very difficult balancing trick,
especially on an unknown landing field with uncertain distances.
"Actually he almost succeeded. He came down just a little too
fast, smashed up our tubes, rammed the whole rear down into the
pumice-and-dust surface, leaving our nose cabin sticking out unharmed.
Von Borck slammed his head against the metal paneling. I took a spill,
and Arkady who had volunteered to stand at the opposite observation
port from the pilot in order to inform him of any dangers from that
side was thrown across the room and killed."
Robin nodded slowly. "But why didn't you just stay here instead of
going out?"
Peter went to a wall cabin, opened it. Inside there were about a
half-dozen small containers and cans. "That's the whole stock of food
we have left," was the reply. "We couldn't have stayed here too long.
When I looked around outside I saw mist issuing from that spot in the
cliff we came through. Obviously we'd die if we didn't find some place
to stay. I went outside, buried Arkady, explored a little, realized
that that rill out there was a sealed cleft which probably held air. So
I loaded Von Borck, who had been unconscious for hours, and set out to
go underground."
Robin got up, walked around. He was already in better shape. He looked
at the panels, found them complex and with the markings in Russian.
"What's the source of the electricity?" he asked.
"There's an atomic pile somewhere in the rear of the rocket,"
Peter replied. "That's something you don't smash easily. It's still
operating."
"Can we send a message back to Earth then?" asked Robin. "If we've the
power, and this ship must have a radio...."
"We tried that, but the radio was smashed in the landing. However,
there is an emergency wave sender which was designed for just such a
thing. I don't know if that's working. Let's see."
Peter opened a door set in the floor of the rocket which opened on an
area jammed with equipment, wiring, and extra supplies. He reached
around, extracted a small black box. He held it up, shook it gently.
Handing it to Robin, he took out a roll of wire, and seating himself at
the pilot's seat began to connect the box to the rocket. When it was
plugged in to the electric system of the cabin, Peter flicked a switch
and turned a knob. A thin humming came from the box.
"It works," he said. "This gives off a steady signal wave going on the
general air-travel band. The radio buzz can be heard from Earth if it's
being sought. By following it, astronomers can trace exactly where this
rocket is. All we have to do is leave this on--it will run for years on
our atomic power source. Eventually, rockets will locate us."
"But surely there must be some way of calling their attention even
sooner?" said Robin. "Do you have flares?"
"You're right," Peter said excitedly. "We've got them. And it is night
outside. If we use our flares, they could be seen on any decent-sized
telescope. Shall we set them off?"
Robin nodded. "No time like now."
Peter reached again into the floor storages, opening another section,
and began to pull out another space suit. "This was Arkady's," he said.
"It should fit you."
It did. This time, Robin felt none of the uneasiness that had assailed
him on his previous experience on the outside. In a few minutes, he and
Peter were standing a short distance away from the rocket and setting
out the flares.
Although the suit was cumbersome, it was not too uncomfortable. Instead
of tight bandaging, the fabric of the suit consisted of some sort of
self-inflating air sacs, which maintained an equal and natural pressure
on the surface of Robin's body. The helmet, which was really airtight
and warmed, was entirely comfortable, although again the breathing was
a matter of a forced intake and a willful exhalation.
They set up the flares, which were magnesium-burning giant candles, a
safe distance from the rocket, wired them to a detonator powered from
the ship. Then, before going back, Robin and Peter simply stood and
looked around.
All about, the giant bare mountains ringed the crater. Their gaunt,
jagged outlines were a black ring against which was set the star-strewn
wonder of the sky, in whose exact center slowly rotated the marvelous
globe of Mother Earth.
The eerie Earthlight threw odd shadows and dark spots across the
grayness of the plain. Here and there the mysterious-looking domes
rose, the tops of bubbles as Robin had reason to know. In other places
smaller craters and ringed ridges broke the surface.
"It looks desolate and barren," commented Peter on the helmet-radio.
"Yet, you know, when we landed in the sunlight of the Moon's day, it
wasn't all like this. There were patches of low scrubby plants growing
in the lowest sections near spots where some air must have been seeping
out. This crater is considerably lower than much of the surrounding
areas on this central part of the Moon. The air here may be almost
unnoticeable, but it is still just a bit denser even than it must be on
the 'seas' beyond these crater walls."
"How did you spot that break in the wall we came through?" asked Robin,
turning to search for it.
"As a matter of fact, it was quite obvious," said his brother. "In the
sunlight, there's a distinct stream of vapor coming out of it and a lot
of frozen water vapor all around. Further, it was just there that the
green vegetation was growing thickest. It was quite inviting to a man
looking for refuge ... otherwise I'd probably never have thought of it."
They trudged back to the rocket, climbed through the lock into the
safety of the tiny cabin. Robin set the firing pin of the detonator
switch, looked out. "It's the Western Hemisphere that's facing the Moon
now," he said. "Just coming into view. Must be early morning around the
New Mexico belt. You know, your Russian friends won't see this flare."