Here he was riding to the Moon with a tinkering idiot who couldn't fix a
kitchen faucet or locate a blown fuse in the basement. Streams of
moisture were trickling down the wall. The metal felt cold, like the
window of the car on a day when you needed the heater and defroster. Was
something going wrong?
Maybe they were out of oxygen. He listened to Harold snoring. Once
Harold took a quick breath, and strangled, and turned his head
restlessly. His glasses were slipping off.
Orville looked at his watch. He couldn't believe that just five minutes
had gone by since he'd looked at it last. He could hear Harold's
two-dollar watch ticking away, almost as loud as his own. His was
gaining on Harold's and then they were ticking together so that the
combined pounding sent echoes through the ship. He tried to crawl.
He couldn't move.
"Harold!" The ticking of the watches drowned out his voice. "We're in
trouble! We're out of oxygen! Help!"
It was like a bad dream. Then something woke him: Harold, stumbling
across his legs, turning on the scope and waiting, breathing hard, for
it to come to life.
Harold saw that he was awake. "You went to sleep! You shoulda woke me.
It's been six hours!"
Orville said nothing.
"We may be clear past the Moon by now," Harold grumbled.
* * * * *
Orville turned his face to the wall. He heard the hiss as Harold ran in
fresh oxygen. "Shoot! Better go down and hook up a new tank." Harold
clanked around in the other end of the ship and came back.
"How far out are we?" asked Orville.
"Not far. I'm cutting down the speed some."
"Uh ... how do you plan to take her down?"
"That's an interesting point, now. Let's see...."
"Wouldn't it be better if we just flew up close, not too close, and then
headed for home? Of course, there's that problem back there, too."
"Don't you want the beans? I'll eat 'em then."
"But I'd feel better crashing on the Earth, somehow, than on the Moon--"
"Who says we're going to crash? There are several ways to set her down.
Head first, tail first, but I guess I'll lay her in sideways. It'll be
easier to crawl outside."
"What?"
"Sure." Harold was munching beans. Then he rummaged in the supplies and
brought out a jar of peaches. He drank off some of the juice. "Rosie
never gets enough sugar in these to suit me." The peaches slid off the
spoon. He dug in with his fingers and brought out a slice. "Point of the
whole thing. Explore. Look around." He tilted the jar to his mouth and
let slices fall into his mouth. "Pick up some samples of rocks and
things."
"You can get rocks right around home."
"But these are different. These weigh only a quarter as much as the
rocks on Earth. Or is it a sixth?"
"In that case--" Orville started gathering up empty bags and cans and
putting them into a soup carton.
"What're you doing?"
"Cleaning the place up a little. We can get rid of some of this trash."
"Don't throw those out! I paid a deposit on them." Harold pulled out the
empty milk bottles and put them back in the case.