"Are we down?"
Harold nodded. Orville let go of the railing he'd been hanging onto.
Harold unplugged something.
The ship went dark and started rolling. It was a slow, drunken roll and
as noisy as an oil drum going down the court house steps. There was a
final hard blow; then the ship rocked and lay still.
Orville sat up. He could hear Harold scrambling about, and then a
flashlight came on.
"What happened?"
"Must have landed on the side of a mountain. Rolled down when I turned
off our counter-grav. Shoot!" Harold held up something. "Broke a lens in
my glasses. There's another trip to the eye-doctor's."
Orville rescued a couple of bottles that were spilling water. Everything
else seemed to be all right. The ship lay on its side now and Harold was
crawling through the hole leading to the other compartment. When Orville
got through, Harold was hauling something from the other end of the
ship.
"What we waiting for?" Orville put his hand on the handle of the outer
door. "Last one out is a--"
"Wait a minute! You gotta wear this thing." Harold was laying out a
spacesuit. He explained how it worked. He didn't object a great deal
when Orville volunteered to go out first.
"We can take turns." Harold helped Orville slide his feet into the thing
and pull it on. It fitted Orville rather tightly in places, but it
seemed to be all right.
"Be careful now." Harold squinted at him through the one lens of his
glasses. "Don't tear her on a rock or anything. You'd pop like a kid's
balloon."
"Wait a minute!"
Harold paused, holding the helmet.
"I can't go through with it," Orville said. "I was planning a mean trick
on you. I was going to be the first man."
"What difference does that make? We're both in on it together." Harold
clapped the helmet down on Orville's shoulders. He tightened some clamps
and leaned close and said something which Orville could not hear. Then
Orville saw that he wanted to shake hands, so Orville shook his hand.
Harold squirmed back through the hole into the nose, waved and shut the
door.
* * * * *
Orville aimed the flashlight at the outer door. He turned the valve
beside the door, feeling the suit puff out around him, and when the
pressure in the compartment was gone, he reached toward the handle. His
eyes were watering. He had to use all of his strength to move the
handle; then the door popped open, swinging out and down, and he was
looking out at the Moon.
There was glaring light and a kind of fog. He laid down the flashlight
and, groping, found the soup carton in which he'd put the refuse
accumulated during the trip, and flung the box into the fog.
He looked out again. There was nothing but the glaring white void.
"Well, that settles that!" There was no use getting out. On the other
hand, how about a souvenir?
He stuck a leg out through the opening, which was now about two feet
high and four feet wide. By wriggling, he got the other leg out, but he
couldn't touch the ground. He reached his left foot a little farther and
touched something that rolled slightly, then was solid. That's far
enough, he thought; to hell with the souvenir!
But the mittens were too clumsy. He couldn't pull himself back in. He
lowered himself farther and stood. He shuffled among the loose, rolling
stones and reached down and picked one of them up. Harold was right:
they weighed a lot less than the rocks on Earth. He cradled the thing in
one arm and stood there.
[Illustration]
Here he was, standing on the Moon! The very first man! He hugged the
souvenir to his body. They'd keep it on the coffee table, between those
two awful ashtrays Polly had brought back from Niagara Falls, and when
anyone asked him what was that funny rock lying there, he'd say--
Orville had been reaching, trying to touch the ship. His hand met
nothing....
Now keep calm, he thought. Don't get turned around. And don't panic. It
can't be far away. He reached out in another direction and took a step,
but still his waving hand met nothing. Try this way then....
As he turned, his elbow struck the edge of the opening. Maybe he'd been
waving his arm through the opening all the time!
He tossed in the souvenir. He wriggled in after it. Careful! What did
Harold say about tearing the suit?
He closed the outer door. As he returned the pressure to the
compartment, the suit became limp against him, and Orville was so weak
that he sank to the floor. He was still lying there when Harold took off
the headpiece.
"It's a total flop," Orville told him. "It's been a waste of time. No
use going out."
* * * * *
He told Harold about the narrow escape he'd had in the fog. _Fog_ on the
Moon? This didn't sound right to Harold. He was fooling with the helmet,
scratching frost from the inside of the visor. "Couldn't you get the
defroster working? This little button right here. I showed you."
Orville knew, to his shame and disgust, that he had been looking at his
own breath all of that time.
Harold now insisted on going out. Orville shined the flashlight around.
He was looking for the souvenir, and he found it, near their feet.
It was a package carefully wrapped in paper, some of the refuse which he
had thrown outside.
That figures, he thought bitterly. Well, anyway, I was _first man_. They
can't take that away from me!
Harold was gone a long time. The nose of the ship was becoming very cold
and the only light came from the luminous dial of Orville's watch. What
was Harold doing out there? Maybe he'd snagged his suit and blown up
like a soap bubble. How long should Orville wait before giving up? He
should have learned how to run the ship, in case of an emergency like
this.
A distant clank startled him. The ship rolled slightly. Orville reached
out a hand in the dark to steady himself and chilled when he realized
what he'd put his hand on. It was the starting switch.
What was that idiot doing out there?
Then Harold was back, breathing hard, squinting through his one good
lens. "Boy, what a sight! I'd give anything for a camera!"
"Never mind that! Let's go! I'm freezing!"
They were off without any trouble and the dim violet light returned and
the ice on the compartment walls began to melt. When the ship was
settled on course, Harold took off the rest of the spacesuit, pulled
some paper from the glove compartment of the dashboard and began
writing.
"It's the official report," Harold said presently. "Getting it all down
while it's fresh in my mind."
"Let's see that!" Orville couldn't read Harold's handwriting. "What's it
say?"
"You really want to hear it? Well...." Harold cleared his throat
modestly and began to read. "'The _Discovery_'--decided to call her the
_Discovery_ on account of--'the _Discovery_ was lying on her side in the
shade, but a blinding light was coming down from some peaks. It nearly
blinded me! Boy, what a--'" Harold squinted over a word--"'sight!'"
"Wait a minute! You giving me credit?"
"What for?"
"For being the first man."
"Oh, sure. I mention that in here some place."
"Just so there's no mistake!" Orville suddenly felt very drowsy. He
curled up facing the wall and went to sleep.
When he awoke, he saw Harold leaning against the wall, his glasses
sliding down, his head nodding. Orville reached over and jerked his
foot.
"There now," he said. "Old neighbor. You go to sleep. I'll watch her for
a while."
* * * * *
Orville felt fine now. While Harold slept, he opened a jar of Rosie's
peaches, drank off the juice and dug in with the spoon. It wasn't really
so bad, not shaving or taking a bath, roughing it out here in space!
He dug into his coat pocket, found a cigar, but it was crushed. Oh,
well. He flung it into the trash. He folded his arms, leaned back his
head.
They sat at the head of a banquet table, he and Harold. The mayor was
there, and the college president, and way down the table was the boss,
old Haverstrom, real proud to be in such important company. And the
governor was there and--by gosh! Sitting right next to Orville was the
President of the United States!
Someone was making a speech--they were awarding some kind of prize for
_first man_ and there was applause and they were waiting for Orville to
get up. He stood, waited for applause to die down.
"Thank you, friends ... all of you ... being no speechmaker ... but I do
want to say right here and now ... no more idea of receiving this great
honor tonight than of--flying to the Moon!"
That would get a laugh. Then he'd go on and give due credit to Harold,
poor old Harold sleeping there, innocent as a baby about such things.
Why, the publicity angle alone could take up a man's full time. Guest
appearances on TV. Getting signed up as technical adviser in Hollywood.
But that was just the beginning.
Take the metal in this ship. Harold had made it out of junk from the
city dump, melting it in a forge he'd fashioned out of an old oil drum.
It had to be cheap and easy to make--but you could probably use it for
almost anything. There was your whole metal industry shot to pieces!
This thing he called a scope now. With a big corporation behind it, Lord
only knew what it would do to the communications setup.
But the big thing was this counter-grav business! _There_ was where you
got into the big leagues. If Harold could do this with it, think what
General Motors could do! Orville could see TWA, B&O and steamship
companies bidding against each other for it. And car manufacturers and
freight handlers--and tugboat owners--and taxi fleets-and the armed
forces--
Harold was waking up. He rubbed his skimpy whiskers, put on his broken
glasses, creaked over to the scope and turned it on. Harold, old boy,
Orville thought tenderly, you don't know it yet, but your troubles are
all over!
"What do you see, Harold?"
"The Earth."
Orville went over. There was a dark green spot on the scope, bright
against deep black. "You sure?"
"Almost positive. That's the only thing that size there is right around
here."
"Well, fine! That calls for a celebration, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yes. Forgot that. We can open the tuna."