yourself when other people are in trouble!”
Steve and his father were surprised at Sue’s outburst. Captain Furman
and the other crewmen smiled.
“I think that solves our problem,” the captain spoke firmly. “If the
young lady has courage enough to overlook the risk, the rest of us
should have it, too. Thank you, Sue. We move at full rocket thrust to
aid the _Pole Star_.”
As the Shannons went out into the corridor, Steve asked his sister,
“Wow, Sue, what made you talk back to that big fellow like that?”
“He was so selfish!” Sue answered. “Besides, it made me mad to hear him
say we didn’t know anything about space! Why, we’ve been over almost all
of the Solar System, haven’t we, Dad?”
Her father pressed her shoulder. “Of course, honey. I’m proud of you,
because I felt the same way.”
It took a few days for the freighter to reach the asteroid. The space
ship, in going past the Earth, had come close enough for the Earth to be
seen as a misty, green light. It made the twins long for home as they
saw it.
“Sierra is like a big meteor, isn’t it, Dad?” Steve asked, as the three
of them looked downward on the flat, egg-shaped rock.
His father nodded. “It’s often called, ‘The Flying Mountain,’ because of
the low peaks on it. Sierra is only a mile long and less than that
wide.”
“I remember from school that it wasn’t discovered until 1965,” Sue said.
“That’s because it’s so small and isn’t very bright in the sky,” her
father spoke. “Most of the asteroids are much farther out, between Mars
and Jupiter, but a few come in close to Earth like Sierra, Hermes, Eros
and some others.”
The freighter landed safely in a flat area about two hundred feet from
the _Pole Star_. The Shannons could see the damaged space ship jammed
against a cliff. Brilliant sunshine reflected upward from bare dark
rock, dazzling their eyes. It was over a hundred degrees on Sierra, for
there was no atmosphere to check the sun’s heat.
“Boy, what a place for a sunburn!” Steve said.
“It’s certainly summertime on Sierra!” Sue added.
They watched crewmen in space suits come out of the freighter and begin
uncoiling a spool of rope that would stretch between the two ships.
Safety lines led from all the men back to the cargo ship.
“There’s almost no gravity at all here,” Mr. Shannon told his son and
daughter, “because the asteroid is so small. If the people from the
_Pole Star_—providing there are any alive—didn’t have the rope to hang
on to, they might float right off Sierra.”
The children asked to go outside. The three suited up and went out,
using safety lines, just in case.
The glare was so strong that they had to lower their darkening glasses
over the face part of their helmets. The heat was such that they had to
switch on the cooling outfits in their suits. It was strange to see the
edge of the asteroid so close, just beyond a fringe of dagger-like
peaks. It was like being on a big space raft.
The twins tried walking. They were less than feather-light and it was
quite a job for them even to keep upright. Sue decided this wouldn’t be
a very good place to spend a summer vacation.
Sue’s cooling outfit made her sneeze. She was lifted right off the
ground and her father had to pull her down quickly. She and Steve
laughed but they had been scared.
“See, it doesn’t take much to send you sky high!” Mr. Shannon joked,
speaking over the radio set which all three of them carried in their
space suits.
At last the crewmen, who had been moving so carefully over the ground
toward the _Pole Star_, reached the ship and fastened the rope to it.
The outer door of the _Pole Star_ was then opened by someone inside.
“Thank goodness somebody’s alive in there!” Mr. Shannon said thankfully.
“I guess the ship just coasted into the rock wall without too much
force.”
The freighter crew began helping people out of the passenger rocket. If
things weren’t so serious, it would have been funny for Sue and Steve to
see them in their balloon-like space suits, bouncing one careful step at
a time and holding on for dear life to the rope.
As the party neared the freighter, the twins suddenly saw their father
dash toward the ship. In his haste, Mr. Shannon seemed to have forgotten
where he was and went scooting upward like a high-jumper.
“Dad!” Sue and Steve cried out together.
Mr. Shannon had to put out his hands and feet at the last minute to keep
from crashing into the wall of the freighter. Then he pulled himself
down to the ground with his safety line. When they saw that their father
was unhurt, Sue and Steve began walking toward the ship with careful
steps.
They heard their dad exclaim, “Mr. Ballinger!” as he walked over to one
of the men from the _Pole Star_.
“John Shannon!” the man said.
It turned out that Mr. Ballinger was the president of the American Space
Supply Company and was Mr. Shannon’s boss. Mr. Ballinger explained that
the _Pole Star_ was heading for Mars when there was an explosion in the
rocket tubes. By landing on Sierra the captain thought there was a
better chance of their being found than if they had just kept drifting
in space, because all ships knew the path of “The Flying Mountain.” No
one had been hurt in the landing and the _Pole Star_ had enough fuel to
get the freighter back to Earth.
“I don’t know whether I should fire you people or not for risking my
good freighter just to save an old codger like me!” the friendly Mr.
Ballinger joked.
“We almost didn’t,” Steve’s dad reminded him and explained how Sue’s
outburst had decided the problem.
“You’ve certainly got some smart ones there, John,” Mr. Ballinger said,
smiling at Sue and Steve. “Your son has already proved himself a hero
before and now it’s Sue. Yes, sir, I sure wish I had a pair like them!”
But the twins scarcely heard him. They were thinking that, in spite of
the great fun they had had on all their space adventures, how wonderful
it was going to be to see Mom again and set foot on the grandest planet
in all the Solar System—Earth!
_CASTAWAYS IN SPACE_
The two of them had just shoved the supply case against the chute door
when the space ship gave an unexpected burst of rocket power, knocking
Skip Miller against the release lever. The escape door shot up and a big
square of black space opened before the boys’ eyes.
Glen Hartzell was stunned to see his friend go spinning down the incline
and follow the supply case toward the open door. Automatically, Glen
stretched his lean body full length trying to grasp Skip’s space suit
before he escaped. But his momentum sent him skidding down the slope and
the next thing he knew he was out in space, too.
A week ago Glen wouldn’t have cared whether he faced death or not. He
and Skip had just made the scorned fraternity of “Wockies,” washed-out
cadets. His failure had cut like a knife. He had wanted to pilot ships
through the depths of space more than anything else in the world.
Instead, he and Skip had been assigned to ground crews on Mars. That, at
least, had been their destination until Skip’s elbow unexpectedly made
them castaways in space.
Glen’s first thought was directed to Skip, who looked like a toy balloon
as he drifted through the vacuum. “Skip!” he called over his space suit
radio. “Do you hear me, Skip?”
“Yeah, Glen,” Skip’s reply was scarcely more than a squeak.
Glen looked down and ahead where a massive rock some ten miles in
diameter hung in the starry emptiness. “If we can make Phobos, we may be
all right.”
“We’re done for,” Skip groaned.
“We’re not!” Glen’s wits were sharpened by the danger. “We’re lined up
pretty well with Phobos. She doesn’t have any gravity to speak of and we
may be able to land on her.”
“We won’t make Phobos,” Skip argued. “We’ll either run into Mars’
gravity field and crash on its surface or float through space until our
air runs out.”
“Shut up, Skip!” Glen’s tone was sharp. “Listen to me. See if you can
pick up a little speed by kicking out behind with your feet and hands.
If you can catch up with the supply case, hang on.”
Skip didn’t reply but Glen saw his arms and legs begin to move. Glen
worked his own. It was a grueling effort, but Glen found that he was
able to increase his speed much in the manner of a space ship’s thrust.
By the time Glen touched Skip’s suit, both of them were sucking freely
of their precious oxygen.
“What’s the idea?” Skip asked as his gloved hand clutched the strap of
the supply case and Glen held onto him.
“We’ll use the case as a buffer to break our fall,” Glen explained.
“Remember, it’s covered with foam rubber so that it won’t shatter when
it hits.”
The two had been preparing to drop the emergency supply case on Mars at
the time of the accident. Glen was glad now that they’d donned space
suits.
Glen saw that the space ship was now only a tiny needle against the red
disk of Mars. He and Skip had probably not even been missed by the crew.
When they did find out, they wouldn’t know where to look for the boys.
Phobos was a jagged, frightening giant below, but Glen held nothing but
love for it. Their speed had increased slightly, but it did not look as
if they would hit the ground dangerously fast.
Glen felt Skip’s muscles tense for the landing.
“Steady, fellow!” Glen breathed.
He felt a rough jar in the pit of his stomach. Glen bounced off Skip’s
back as though he were rubber. He spread out his arms to ease his fall,
then was surprised to find his body settling down to rest as lightly as
a leaf.
Glen felt a prickly chill in his cheeks. “We’ve got practically no
weight at all!” he breathed. Skip had almost drifted off into space
again, but Glen grabbed his leg and pulled him back.
“It’s a crazy world, isn’t it?” Skip searched the rocky landscape that
sloped down from them on both sides. It was weird to be on a globe so
tiny you were conscious of its roundness.
Glenn nodded. “We’ve _really_ got to keep both feet on the ground!”
“What if they don’t find us, Glen?” Skip asked. “What then?”
“I don’t know, Skip,” Glen sighed. “Let’s see what’s in the supply
case.”
Glen was able to crawl better than he could walk over to the supply
case. Skip followed. Glen pressed a button on the case and the top
sprang up.
“Whew! There’s not much that isn’t included!” Skip said. “Spare oxygen
tanks, a bubble tent outfit, food capsules, water maker, first-aid,
flares, books, electronic stove-heater.”
“Let’s put up the bubble tent,” Glen said. “It’ll help save our heat.”
As he had learned in cadet training, he removed a cylinder from the
outfit and pulled a lever. It popped open and a plastic bubble began
growing out of it. The bubble, which was slightly oblong and
transparent, enlarged to about seven feet, then detached itself from the
cartridge airtight. After it had hardened for several minutes, Glen took
an electric saw from the kit and cut a small door in the side. They made
hinges from self-sealing plastic strips.
They used the foam rubber from around the case for flooring, then put
the supplies inside the bubble. They turned on the heater and then
turned off the heat units in their suits.
“How long do you figure our supplies can last, Glen?” Skip asked.
“They’re supposed to last two people ten days,” Glen replied. “Don’t you
remember that question on our exam?”
“Don’t remind me!” Skip said. “I’m tired of hearing about the cadet
corps.”
“I know,” Glen said bitterly.
“How could they flunk us on one question?” Skip asked. “It wasn’t fair.”
“I agree with you,” Glen answered, “but the fact remains that we’ve got
to take it.”
Skip chuckled grimly. “You talk as if we have a lifetime ahead of us. We
don’t know whether we’ve got _tomorrow_.”
“Which reminds me, we’d better send off some flares to let somebody know
where we are.” Glen picked up some of the rocket flares and “drifted”
out of the bubble tent. He set up a flare on its tripod legs, pointed it
at Mars’ ruddy face and pulled on the release catch. But it wouldn’t
move.
“It’s jammed!” Glen tried another rocket and got the same result. Then
another, and another. They were all useless, all the catches warped,
possibly from having been kept too near a heat source in the ship.
“How are we going to signal Mars now?” Skip asked.
“Anything we toss out will be drawn to the planet by its gravitation,”
Glen was thinking out loud.
“How about throwing out some of the extra supplies we have?” Skip
proposed. “We can attach a note.”
“It’s a million-to-one shot they’d be found. Don’t you realize that only
a fraction of Mars has colonists? No, I’m afraid we’d wait here until
doomsday if we had to count on that.”
“But what else is there to do?” Skip’s eyes were round with dread.
Glen fought down his own sudden despair. “It looks as though we’ll have
to get to Mars on our own, Skip.”
“Now you’re crazy! We’d be smashed to pieces!”
“Not the way I’m thinking.” A plan was forming in Glen’s mind, as he
scrambled into the bubble tent and came out with one of their
engineering books. Skip watched in amazement as Glen began working math
problems in the dirt with a piece of stone.
After a while, Glen said, “I think it’ll work, Skip. Want to take a
chance?”
“I’d like to know what it is first.”
“We can use the chute from the supply case and attach it to the bubble,”
Glen explained. “Then we can ride in the bubble to Mars.”
“It sounds fantastic!”
“I’ve figured it every way I know,” Glen said. “At least, it’s better
than sitting here and hoping we’ll accidentally be found. Shall we try
it?”
Skip shrugged. “If it’s our only chance. But I hope you’ve figured all
the angles!”
“We’d better get started right away,” Glen advised. “We may need all our
air tanks if we have to do some walking when we land.”
They set to work fastening the lines of the chute around and under the
plastic bubble. They used more of the plastic strips to secure the lines
tightly. The chute was still folded, since the vacuum on Phobos had
failed to trip the automatic release. The boys decided to carry only a
minimum of supplies to make their weight as light as possible. When they
were ready to go, they climbed into the bubble and Glen shoved them off
with one foot outside the door. Then he closed the door.
“How long will it take us to get there?” Skip asked.
“I’ve figured on about a hundred hours,” Glen answered. “That should put
us close to Mars City, figuring on Mars’ rotation. But if it doesn’t, we
should be able to reach some research settlement.”
They moved slowly at first. Glen hoped for only enough speed to carry
them into Mars’ gravity pull. As they approached the red planet, their
speed would increase and that worried Glen. If they whacked into Mars’
air blanket too fast, the chute might be ripped from the bubble.
To while away the many hours, the boys dozed and took turns reading the
one novel they had brought along. Their legs soon became cramped and
sore, and they would have given a good deal to have been able to stretch
or walk about.
On the third day, the boys could see the canals criss-crossing in a
tangled network on the ruddy globe of Mars. On the fourth day, just as
Glen had figured, the glassite domes of Mars City began to show through
the violet haze of atmosphere. Glen wondered how fast they were going.
There was no way to tell because their insulation kept them from feeling
the rush of air.
“Cross your fingers, Skip,” Glen warned. “Our chute should open in the
next few minutes.”
The seconds appeared to last hours as they waited, and Glen suffered a
torture of suspense. What if the chute did not open? In that case, they
would end up in fragments on Mars’ red earth. Or what if the force of
the air should jerk the chute off the bubble?
Even as Glen worried, he felt a sharp drag and was tumbled over on Skip.
“Look! The chute’s open!” Skip pointed overhead.
Some minutes later, the red ground rushed up at them like an enfolding
blanket. Their final problem faced them now. If they landed safely, they
would have conquered space in a way no spaceman had ever done before.
Glen’s muscles drew tight and his heart thumped rapidly as the last few
hundred feet melted away. He wanted to close his eyes during these final
seconds but he forced himself to watch the rising ground so that he
could brace himself at the moment of contact. He was glad they had the
foam rubber cushion beneath them.
Glen counted off the last few feet. “A hundred—fifty—twenty—!”
As they struck, Glen was thrown against the ceiling of the bubble.
Plastic clattered against plastic as the bubble rolled over on the
ground many times before stopping. Glen straightened himself out. He was
shaken up but he was unhurt. He looked across at Skip.
“We made it,” Glen said, but his voice shook, as if he wasn’t yet able
to believe it. He tore off the door seals, shoved out the door. Then
they got out and stretched their legs. Looking at the domes of Mars City
in the distance, Glen asked, “Ready to start walking?”
“After being cooped up like a chicken, I’m willing to walk all over
Mars. Let’s go.” Skip’s natural good humor had returned.
Less than an hour later, an astonished captain at the Mars City
spaceport heard the boys’ strange story.
“Your courage and ingenuity have been incredible!” the captain said when
they had finished. “I can’t believe that you two are Wockies. If you
weren’t flunked for reasons of scholarship, I’m sure you’ll be
reinstated.”
“We weren’t flunked for that reason, sir,” Skip said.
“For what reason then?” the captain asked.
Glen smiled wryly as he replied, “We were flunked, sir, because we
failed the test to determine whether we could bear up in an emergency or
not!”
_THE BIG SPACE BALL GAME_
It was an unusual setting for baseball. Instead of a blue sky, there was
the darkness of space and the brilliance of stars overhead. The light of
Earth flooded the scene, and surrounding the oversized diamond were the
walls of Copernicus crater, over fifty miles across.
On the mound, Bill Cherry was pitching practice balls to his catcher,
Ollie Taylor. Only underhand throwing was allowed in baseball on the
Moon, for the ball was exceedingly fast in the light gravity and
airlessness. Bill, in snug-fitting space gear, was standing farther than
the regulation ninety feet from the plate. This was because of the
pitcher’s advantage over the batter in Lunar ball.
Bill wound up and threw. The ball shot like a bullet into Ollie’s
double-padded mitt.
“Thatta boy, Bill!” Ollie’s voice came over Bill’s space suit radio. “If
you’re this sharp when we meet the Comets this afternoon, we’re bound to
win our first championship!”
“That’s enough practice, fellows!” Coach Lippert called, coming out of
the dugout. “No use giving our best before the game!”
It was the _big_ game for the team from Plato, which was tied with the
league leaders in this last game of the season. Plato was the farthest
colony on the Moon and was named for the big crater in which it was
located. Copernicus colony, the baseball leader, had won the
championship every year since the school league had been formed. As a
prize, the champions were always given a free rocket trip to Earth.
The Plato Rocketeers were homesick for their mother planet. One of them,
little Pete Irby, had never set foot there. He had been born on the
Moon.
“It must be wonderful to go around without even a space suit on like
they do on Earth!” Pete said wistfully to Bill.
“Don’t worry, Pete,” Bill said confidently. “I have a feeling that this
is our year and that we’re all going to Earth.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” Pete replied, with great feeling. “I can’t
wait to see the great national parks and rivers and all the other
wonderful things there!”
At game time the grandstand was filled and some people were standing. It
was the largest crowd ever to see a ball game on the Moon. Much of the
crowd was made up of hopeful parents from the Plato colony who had come
seven hundred miles by rocket plane to see their boys play.
The champion Copernicus Comets ran out onto the field in big bouncing
strides. For on the Moon a person was capable of jumping and running in
great leaps because of the low gravity, only one-sixth of Earth’s.
The Plato Rocketeers were the visiting team would bat first. When the
outfielders had taken their positions, they were tiny forms far out in
the distance with nothing but gray wilderness behind them for a
backstop. There were eleven men in Moon baseball because of this greater
outfield range. Two extra fielders played behind the shortstop and
second baseman and were called “short fielders.”
Bill noticed a wheel chair below the railing of the grandstand. His
mother and dad had brought his crippled younger brother Skippy to see
the game! Bill had known his parents were going to rocket over from
Plato in time for the game, but they had not said Skippy would come
along. Bill gave Skippy a wave and his little brother waved back.
The lead-off batter for the Rocketeers walked to the plate swinging a
bat, padded to keep it from hitting the ball too hard and far. The
Comets’ ace pitcher, Carl Cadman, hurled three fast strikes over almost
before the batter had gotten a good foothold. Carl struck out the next
batter as well and then forced little Pete Irby to loft a high infield
fly for the third out.
“Let’s get ’em, Bill!” Ollie said excitedly as the Rocketeers took the
field.
“We’ll sure try,” Bill promised his catcher.
Bill took the mound. With his space gloves he massaged rosin into the
baseball. After getting the signal from Ollie, Bill swung his arm down
and around. The batter swung sharply, driving the ball toward third. The
baseman made a dive for the ball, but he missed it. His body seemed to
glide in slow motion in the light gravity.
Bill walked the next batter, making two on and none out. Jack Brenna,
the Comets’ heaviest hitter, was up. Bill got two strikes on him and
then Jack took a better toehold. As Bill saw bat and ball connect
solidly on the next pitch, his heart fell.
The ball arched like a comet across the dark sky. The left fielder took
a dozen giant steps after the ball but then gave up. The ball seemed to
be going for miles. It was a home run.
The Comets did not score anymore that inning, but the damage seemed to
be already done. The champions were leading 3-0.
Bill was first up for the Rocketeers. As he went to the plate swinging a
bat, his eye caught Skippy’s wheel chair, and he saw his game little
brother waving encouragement. It made him want to try even harder to put
his team out in front. Bill knew he would have to do it with his
hitting, since he had failed as a pitcher.
But Bill got no closer to a hit than a long foul into the stands. Then
he struck out. The two teammates following him also failed to get on
base.
The game moved along with no more scoring for the next five innings. It
was still 3-0.
In the last of the seventh inning the Plato Rocketeers had more trouble.
The first Comet batter topped the ball slowly to Pete at shortstop, who
tried too hard to make the play. The ball rolled between his legs and
the runner went all the way to second.
Pete was so busy grumbling about his last error that he muffed the next
play too. He jumped ten feet into the air trying to reach the high,
bounding ball, but he misjudged it and it went on past. The runner on
second loped down to third in long strides. Bill called time in order to
give Pete a chance to settle down.
“We’ll never win this game!” Pete groaned. “Why don’t you fellows say
I’m not any good—like you’re thinking!”
“Stop talking like that!” Bill told him over his suit radio. “You’re
thinking too much about going to Earth, Pete. You’re trying _too_ hard!”
“I’ll try to do better,” Pete promised.
The next batter drove a high fly to center, sending the runner in from
third and making the score 4-0. Bill walked the player following, but
then he was lucky enough to strike out the hard-hitting Jack Brenna.
The next Comet drove a hard liner to Pete. Pete scrambled for the ball,
but once again he muffed it and it went on into the outfield. The
shortfielder recovered it quickly but threw wide to third, sending the
runner into the plate with the Comets’ fifth run.
When Bill looked at Pete, the little fellow had thrown his big fielder’s
glove into the air and was beginning to walk broken-heartedly off the
diamond.
“Pete!” Bill heard Coach Lippert call sharply over his suit radio as he
ran onto the field. “Get back to your position, son! I don’t like a
quitter on my team.”