At last there came the hour when the ship hovered a few hundred miles
above the surface of the Moon. Below them was a vast and uneven surface
of barren and pitted rock, round craters and jagged peaks stretching
to the horizon in all directions. Larry realized now how uneven the
surface of the satellite really was, how different from the orange-peel
appearance it had when seen through a telescope from Earth. All the
crew were at landing stations. Ripon had adjusted his controls to hold
the ship steady in space, and now he stepped back.
"There's no use bothering with helicopters," he said. "Since there's no
atmosphere here, they'd be useless. That's probably what wrecked the
ships before us--you can't make an easy landing with rockets alone, and
we have no padded landing platform."
"Can't you lower her down easy with your magnetic control?" Larry asked.
"That's what I hope to do, but we're not experienced and there may be
a jolt. Cut off the reserve air tanks, and have all hands put on space
suits."
The crew of the _Sky Maid_ looked like a group of fantastic monsters in
the metal-cloth space suits with their round helmets of duro-glass.
Designed for use by emergency repair crews aboard stratholiners in
case of trouble, the space suits would keep a man alive and warm in
an airless atmosphere for a great many hours. Small containers of
chemicals kept the air purified, and earphones made communication
possible.
"Stand by for a landing!" Ripon's voice buzzed in the ear phones as
Larry reported all hands ready. "We're going down!"
The _Sky Maid_ went down in a series of jerky drops. With eventual
refinement, a ship equipped with the Ripon Magnetic Control would
probably be able to come down as gently as a falling leaf, but this
first apparatus was crude and experimental. Just at the end one of
Ripon's elbows touched the wrong switch. The rocky surface swept up
to meet them at high speed. He shouted hoarsely and spun compensating
dials, but before he could check the momentum they struck with a heavy
crash. The ship heeled over, and all the lights went out. As Larry was
flung off his feet he heard a sharp hiss of escaping air.
* * * * *
Momentarily half stunned, Larry lay on the floor in a corner of the
control room with the body of another of the crew across his legs. Then
he saw a bulky, space-suited figure heave to its feet across the room
and heard Ripon's voice in his ear phones.
"Leaping ray-blasts, what a crash! But I seem to be alive and in one
piece. How about the rest of you?"
Other men struggled to their feet and answered their names. One had
his helmet smashed and was already dead in the airless atmosphere that
remained after the air had rushed out through the shattered wall of the
control room, but the rest had nothing more serious than a few bruises.
"Well," Colton said. "Here we are! And here we're likely to stay."
"It may not be that serious. The first thing is to take stock of our
damage."
The _Sky Maid_, they found on making a complete survey, was far less
seriously damaged than might have been the case. The wall of the
control room was punctured by a jagged splinter of rock, but there
were only a few other minor leaks. Many of the compartments had
retained their air. Once the hole was patched and the other leaks
stopped, their reserve tanks still held enough air to let them make a
homeward voyage in safety. The network of wires outside the hull would
require considerable reconditioning, but none of the internal magnetic
equipment was ruined.
"About five days' work!" Ripon summed up. "And it's primarily a job for
the engine room force. Gibson, Colton, the two quartermasters and I
will go ashore with several days' supply of chemical capsules for the
air conditioners on our helmets. Chief Engineer Masterson remains in
command of the ship. Get her back in navigating shape as soon as you
can, Chief."
Masterson, a grimy and bullet-headed little man with a drooping
mustache and something of the look of a mournful Airedale, slapped the
side of his duro-glass helmet in a casual salute. Larry knew that the
ship was being left in good hands. He had come to have considerable
respect for the taciturn engineer. He did not know why Masterson was on
board the _Sky Maid_, very likely because he had been in some trouble
similar to Larry's own, but he was certainly an efficient engineer.
He wished he felt as sure of the three men who were going ashore with
Ripon and himself. Colton he considered thoroughly untrustworthy, and
the two quartermasters were a pair of sullen derelicts of the sort that
Ripon had picked up off the beach for most of the crew.
"Landing party ashore!" Ripon snapped. "Let's get going! This isn't an
ordinary exploring party, and every hour counts."