Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
I don't know who else to appeal to about the fix I'm in, because I'm
afraid I would be revealing top secret material to someone who isn't
entitled to hear it. That's why I wouldn't tell the FBI anything and
that's why I told them I don't want a lawyer.
I know you've got lots on your mind, Mr. President, and I hope hearing
about my blunder doesn't throw you off your game this weekend or
anything like that, but I sure would appreciate it if you could find
time to help me out.
You see, I'm not a spy, and I sure didn't stumble into this stuff of my
own accord, but how was I to know I was setting off a spark that had
something to do with space travel? After all, when you stop to think
about it, I only did what the foreman told me to, but he didn't know
any better either, so I wouldn't want to get him in Dutch.
You see, I work at the Diversified Metal Products Co. up here in
Chicago. I'm a spot welder and one job I had to do about every six
weeks was make six welds on a geedunk we called a "manhole cover." We
didn't know what they were, except that they were something special for
the Signal Corps, and they looked about as much like manhole covers as
anything else.
Well, the way the work is supposed to be scheduled, my welding job is
the first thing after it comes off the presses, just before the little
coils are put in. So the foreman comes over to me one night--it was
October 10, the last day of the World Series--and shows me one of the
covers after it's been wired up. One of the welds has come loose--maybe
because the material was dirty or something like that--and it looks
like the whole thing will have to be scrapped.
So he says to me "Tuck" (my name is Joe Peters, but they call me Tuck
for Kentucky where I come from)--he says, "Tuck, do you suppose you
can save this piece by welding it again, right there between those two
coils?"
I look the geedunk over, and there isn't much room to play around, but
I decide it's not near enough the coils to melt the wires. So if I
spoil it, so what? It'd be scrap anyhow. How was I to know the points
of the welder would establish an electrical contact?
So I take the piece and tell him I'll try it after I finish the
truckload of stuff I'm working on. But along about coffee time, I go
and burn my hand kind of bad on the welder, and have to get the nurse
to bandage it up for me, and that slows me up a good bit.
Everybody else in the department had left for washup by the time I put
the gismo in the machine. I kicked the pedal just like I always do, and
whoosh! I was out like a rookie the first time he faces Allie Reynolds.
Seems like I saw a flash of bluish-greenish light, but I don't know for
sure.
* * * * *
Next thing I knew, a squatty guy with broad shoulders and bushy
eyebrows was standing over me. He said, "Well, did the Yankees win the
Series?" and his accent sounded like he should be following the Dodgers
instead.
I looked around. It was kinda dark, like just after the sun goes down.
I was sitting on a big strip of limestone, and I could see a few trees
and some small hills, and lots more of those limestone rocks, or
cliffs. It wasn't like any part of the country I've ever seen before.
The guy starts giving me the once over, too. "What monkey in that zoo
they call the Pentagon picked _you_ for a job like this? I knew the
Defense Department was hard up, but I didn't think they were _that_
hard up!"
Then I notice this geezer has a uniform sporting top sergeant's
stripes. I jump up and back away from him.
"Look," I says, "I don't know what happened, but I know I didn't
volunteer for no army job, and I'm too old to be drafted again. I must
have had amnesia. I wanna lawyer. Lemmee out of here--you're not giving
me that army routine again--no siree."
(Mr. President, please don't misunderstand me. I'm as patriotic as the
next guy, and I assure you I won't shirk no duty if I'm needed, but I
don't have to _like_ it, do I?)
The guy's dumbfounded. He doesn't give me a strong-arm deal like I'd
expect from a top-sarge--he just looks as if he can't figure it out.
Then he grabs me by the shoulder.
"Wait a minute, Mac, let's sit down and talk this over. Who the hell
are you? Where did you come from? Who sent you?"
I'm about to say "Groucho sent me," but I decide maybe I'd better be
serious. I tell him my name, and that I ain't got the faintest idea
where I am.
"Okay, Tuck," he says. "They call me Yogi. Now let's take it from the
beginning, slow and easy, huh?"
So I tell him what happened in the plant, and before I get done Yogi is
laughing like crazy, in fact he sits down on the rock and almost knocks
himself out.
"Well, what in Sam Hill is so all-fired funny? Who kidnapped me while I
was knocked out and dumped me on this God-forsaken army post?"
Yogi manages to stop laughing. He takes me across a strip of this
funny-looking, bare limestone rock, where a contraption is standing
that looks like a radio tower about ten feet high. Inside it is a
box about the size and shape of those reducing cabinets you see in
cartoons. The top to the box is open, and Yogi points to it.
"Is this the kind of doohicky you're talking about--what you call a
manhole cover?"
I look close, and sure enough, that's just what it is. I nod to Yogi,
and he sighs real serious like.
"Well, Tuck, my boy, you maybe made yourself famous tonight. One thing
for sure--you're the first civilian to travel by HHF, and the first one
to set foot on Lunette."
"And where on God's green earth is Lunette?"
"That's what's so funny, Tuck. It's not on God's green earth at all.
Lunette is a satellite of the Earth, discovered just a few months ago.
It's a sort of little moon--that's why we named it Lunette. It's got
enough atmosphere so we don't need space suits, and it's about half-way
between Earth and the moon."
* * * * *
I guess I was giving him a "tell me another" look. He pointed in back
of me. "Look at the moon coming up over there, if you don't believe me.
Did you ever see anything like that on Earth?"
That convinced me. The old moon was huge, and I could see mountains and
rivers and seas on it, and even that natural bridge I'd read about.
Besides, I could even see the curve of the ground on Lunette!
But how in blazes did I get here?
"This contraption," Yogi explains, "we call a Matter BARS, short for
Matter Broadcasting and Receiving Station. It works on HHF--hyper
high frequency--and instead of sending out the ordinary type of
radio wave lengths it broadcasts matter. It won't work between two
points on Earth; it has to have a distance of at least 200,000 miles
to bounce from. We bounce stuff off the moon, and broadcast people,
equipment--anything of less than 250 pounds--between Earth and Lunette."
"Who bounces them? Who in tarnation bounced me here?"
"You bounced yourself, friend. Your spotweld machine set up a contact
here between these two coils. Our regular operators establish contact
by moving these two balls near each other like a Leyden jar. Your
machine had the same effect, and whoosh, here you are."
"Look, Bud, I remember a Leyden jar from high school science, but
durned if I follow the rest of that malarky."
Yogi's getting impatient with me. "It's very simple, Peters. Suppose
you wandered into a TV studio when the circuits were open--your picture
and voice would be broadcast over that station. Well, that Matter BARS
cover was set at the right frequency for sending objects or people to
Lunette and you were broadcast here. You wouldn't have been knocked out
if you had been inside the insulating cabinet; it would have just felt
like a sneeze."
"So what are you doing here?" This guy is selling me fast.
"Guess I'd probably better let the CO talk to you about that. But first
tell me about the Series."
So we bat the breeze a while about what is going on back on Earth,
and I start to wonder how am I going to get back there. Yogi tells me
to let the CO worry about that, and in the meantime offers to show me
around the joint.
There's not much to see on Lunette--nothing but salt water lakes,
limestone cliffs, a few scrawny trees, and some weird bushes with round
things dangling from them that you'd think was grapefruit, or something
like that, until you found out they were hard as coconuts.
All of the plant life looked like the chlorophyll people had been there
already, and had taken a big haul back to their toothpaste factories.
The grass and leaves were either a kind of chartreuse or a pale color
like weak orangeade. Finally we take off for the CO.
* * * * *
The Captain turned out to be a right guy, but he sure was upset about
the security angle. He couldn't help grinning, though, when Yogi said,
"I still think it's damned funny that a civilian could stumble into a
top secret army base 100,000 miles from home!"
"Well, Peters," the Captain said, "we can't very well send you back
tonight anyway, because both the regular station and the test station
at your plant in Chicago are closed now. Under ordinary circumstances
I'd have to lock you up, but I don't see how you can escape from us! Go
bunk with Yogi and let me think it over."
He stopped us as we started out of the tent. "And men, keep your lips
buttoned."
We join the fellows and talked about baseball for a couple hours. We
organized a game for the next day, and I agreed to play shortstop,
even though I'm hoping I won't be around for it. The Captain's remarks
hadn't made me feel too easy on that score.
I ask Yogi how come all the bicycles over by the pueblo castle and he
explains that they can be broadcast, unassembled, where the parts to a
jeep or any other big vehicle would be too heavy for the Matter BARS
to handle. He says they're used by the crews assigned to surveying and
mapping Lunette, making geological and botanical surveys, and that sort
of thing.
Yogi gets me a sleeping bag and we stretch out under the stars in front
of the limestone castle. (Man, that thing is pretty in the moonlight,
Mr. President.) Lanterns hanging in some of the caves made it sparkle
here and there like a giant hunk of jewelry. And I never breathed such
fresh, sweet air as that, anyplace.
The next day the CO calls Yogi in for a conference that doesn't include
me, so I get in on the baseball game after all. It was a lot of fun,
too. Lunette's gravity is much less that of Earth so I made some pretty
wild throws until I got oriented.
At chow time I latched onto Yogi. "Hey, kid, when do I get out of here?
This is a fine adventure, but after all, I got obligations back on
Earth."
"It may not be that easy, Tuck. The Captain doesn't know what to do. HQ
is going to bust a gasket when they find out about you. After all, the
Captain is the only one who has made any trips back since we got here,
and the project is so secret that not more than 20 people on Earth have
any inkling of it."
I began to flip my lid. "Yogi," I said, "how much does this project
cost?"
"Plenty, Tuck, more than you'd imagine. The equipment the guys use for
their surveys is pretty high-powered stuff. Why?"
"Because it's coming out of my pocket, that's why. And me and a lot of
my buddies who are paying the freight on these deals are getting sick
of hearing that only two or three or twenty people in the whole USA
knows about this or that secret project. Security is okay, but don't
you think we ought to know something about what our money's going for?"
Boy, am I a genius at putting my foot in it! The lighter gravity on
Lunette must of gone to my head. Yogi gave me a real funny look, got up
from the mess table, and walked off.
* * * * *
I started to sweat. What the heck made me blow off like that? Now they
really would think I was a security risk, and maybe they'd decide not
to let me go back at all, at least not until they had a court-martial
or something. Naturally I have plenty of respect for military secrets;
it's just that I think voters should have a little more information and
a little more say-so about how our money is spent. It's a sore point
with me. But what a stupid time I pick to sound off about it!
A soldier comes along and tells me the CO wants to see me. Now I know
this is it.
But Yogi and the Captain both looked as friendly as ever. "Peters," the
CO said, "I think you can be useful to us."
Oh, oh, here it comes. They're going to try to talk me into staying up
here.
"I suppose you have figured out by now what the Lunette Project is all
about," the Captain went on. "You remember stories in the papers a few
years ago on the possibility of creating an artificial satellite to use
as a base for guided missiles in case of war?"