It was now six A.M. Snap had been busy all night with routine
cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile
of them beside him.
"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
"No. Not a thing."
We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the
Moon's surface. The _Planetara_ presently would swing upon her direct
course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger
comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the
satellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed.
It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had
rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface with
our glass.
But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer
and sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon is
cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the
intrepid Grantline might be.
"Nothing at all, Snap."
And Snap's instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
faintest signal, were motionless.
"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore," said Snap. "We
should get an impulse from its rays."
But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave the
magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection,
pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepest
seas.
There was nothing.
Yet in those Moon caverns--a million million recesses amid the crags
of that tumbled, barren surface--the pin point of movement which might
have been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he
have the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence to
hostile watchers?
Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphere
of the Moon at all....
My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed
everywhere about the _Planetara_ this voyage, ran rife with fears for
Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was
now, or perhaps never.
Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth's shadow
now. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us
was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dull
red half sphere.
We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant white
ball--all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the
bow, and presently, as the _Planetara_ swung upon its course for Mars,
it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our
windows.
Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his
forehead, worked over our instruments.
"Gregg!"
The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! It
glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began
sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.
Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were
soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon this
hemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable.
"He's got it, Gregg! He's--"
The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, "Here he
comes! By God, the message at last!"
Snap decoded it.
_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
location later. Success beyond wildest hopes._