Ben lost to them!
Garry could hardly believe it. Surely Ben could have found _some_ way to
save himself. Did he really have to make such a costly sacrifice?
No one aboard the flier cared to speak for several minutes after Mac’s
tragic announcement. It had come as a devastating blow to all of them.
Finally, Isaac broke the solemn quiet: “It won’t be the same with good
old Ben gone. He was a smart, brave guy. I’d like to have an ounce of
all the scientific and mechanical knowledge he had.”
They had been so concerned over Ben’s fate that they had almost
overlooked the fact that the rocky wilderness of the moon was staring
them in the face; that in a few moments the flier would be either
touching down on her surface or crashing along with the _Carefree_ and
Ben, her only human occupant.
Mac was guiding the craft into a slowly descending spiral. This would
give the flier’s braking rockets time to reduce speed to safe level for
the touchdown.
The _Carefree_ was not in sight, although Garry searched the starry sky
through the plastic walls of the flier. He was glad he could not find
her. He would not have liked to see her crash.
Down below, Garry could see the huge dish of a giant crater. It was
within this area that Mac was circling. As if anticipating Garry’s
question, Mac explained: “Ben suggested that we try landing on the floor
of this crater, which is called Hornfield. It was discovered by a lunar
explorer in 1983. It is supposed to be covered by several inches of
pumice dust, and that may help to break our fall if we make a bad
touchdown.”
From high up, the walls of the crater did not appear very impressive,
but as the flier spiraled lower, they looked like lofty battlements of
ancient castles.
As they dipped lower still, Garry watched those grim crater walls close
in around the small space craft. Spread out below was the ocean of gray
dust that carpeted the crater floor. Part way up, above the horizon, was
seen the distant globe of earth. It cast ghostly greenish shadows around
the walls, pits, and rock formations. This was the two-week period of
night on Luna, and the temperature down there, in a nearly airless
atmosphere, Garry knew, was more than two hundred degrees below zero.
“Everyone make sure his restraining belts are tight,” Mac called. “We’re
about to touchdown.”
The ground rushed up to meet them, as Garry felt himself tipped forward
in his seat. The belly of the little flier skimmed the ocean of dust,
sending it up in a giant cloud along both sides of the craft. The flier
continued to plow along through the pumice until friction finally
brought it to a halt.
It was strange being still again, Garry thought. Another strange feeling
was the gravity pull of the moon, which he knew to be only one sixth as
strong as that of earth.
“Is everybody all right?” Captain Eaton asked.
No one said that he _wasn’t_ all right. Garry and Patch began
unfastening their restraining belts, as did the others.
Captain Eaton was the first to his feet. He moved over to the window
with a strange floating sort of step owing to his reduced moon weight.
Then he looked out.
“Where are we, Mac?” he asked.
“Inside the Hornfield crater,” Mac answered.
“Are there any settlements close by?” the captain asked. “Anybody who
can come to our rescue?”
“About twenty-five miles to the southwest, captain,” Mac answered. “Ben
told me just where it was and advised me to land as close to it as
possible. I thought this was as close as we dared approach, because the
ground is treacherous between Hornfield and the settlement.”
“What sort of settlement is it, Mac?” Isaac asked.
“An oxygen-mining outfit in the Taurus Mountains. They’re mining for ore
rich in oxygen to provide pressurized air for the underground terminal
of Luna City, five hundred miles farther to the south. Ben said he
thought they would have fliers that could get here in a short time as
soon as they got our radio message.”
“But we don’t have any radio,” Mr. Klecker said.
“Yes we do, and we can thank the flier’s lifesaving equipment for that,”
Captain Eaton said.
He went to a cabinet built into the wall and pulled out an oblong box.
On the top of it were the words: “SOS Automatic Transmitter.”
“You mean that was in the flier all this time and that we could have
used it earlier ourselves?” Garry asked in surprise.
“Yes, you could have,” Captain Eaton replied.
“I’m familiar with this transmitter,” the captain went on. “Let’s get
the radio kit down.”
When this was done, Captain Eaton donned one of the two space suits
which the flier carried. When he was dressed, he entered the flier’s air
lock, carrying the radio kit. Those inside the ship watched Captain
Eaton walk about fifty feet from the flier and open the box containing
the transmitter.
“Gee, why does he have to open it up out there?” Patch wanted to know.
“Couldn’t he transmit from inside the ship just as easy?”
“No, not nearly as well,” Mac explained. “Just watch, and you’ll see
why!”
Captain Eaton took some things out of the box, and then, after tinkering
with them for a few minutes, he set the transmitter in the pumice dust
and ran back toward the flier as if he had just lighted a bomb fuse. A
few seconds later the boys were surprised to see something resembling a
giant snake spring from the ground beside the transmitter and extend
straight up in the dark sky!
“What in the world was that?” Patch asked in amazement.
“That’s the antenna for the transmitter, isn’t it, Mac?” Garry asked.
Mac nodded. “That long ropelike thing is hollow, and the antenna is in
the middle of it. Captain Eaton released a switch that caused the casing
to fill with compressed air, and that is what keeps it extended into the
sky. That gives us a much better antenna than we could possibly have in
here. Also, being as tall as it is, the radio waves leaving it can
travel great distances and cross high places which they could not do if
it were short. Understand?”
The boys nodded.
“The transmitter is a very light and simple one,” Mac went on. “All it
can do is send out an SOS signal from time to time; it can’t transmit
words. Yet whoever picks it up can easily trace it. I hope our signal
will carry as far as the mining settlement and that there’s no
interference between to block our radio waves. Those mountains could
block the waves.”
“How long do you think we can hold out, just in case our rescue is slow
in coming?” Garry asked Mac.
“If we carefully ration food, water, and air, I’d say we could last
about five days, earth time,” Mac replied. “I’m pretty sure the captain
will start rationing right away, just to make sure, but I can’t see any
reason why we won’t see a rescue flier heading this way pretty soon,
certainly by tomorrow.”
Captain Eaton presently came back inside and began taking off his space
suit.
“If we get out of this alive, we’ll owe it all to Ben,” Isaac remarked.
Garry noticed the sudden sadness on the faces of the others at the
mention of Ben’s name. Presently, everyone in turn began saying
something good about their friend; that is, everyone except Captain
Eaton, whom Garry knew had been closer to Ben than any of the others.
The captain was still plainly too broken up to say anything about Ben at
this time. He just quietly finished removing his pressure-suit gear, and
Garry could see the tragedy in his eyes. Garry was glad when Captain
Eaton changed the subject, because he himself had grown very fond of the
brilliant young spaceman.
“We should take inventory of our stock,” the captain was saying, “and
then start a rationing schedule. We can’t be sure how long we’ll have to
wait before help comes. I don’t want to alarm everybody, but there’s
always the possibility of radioactivity or mineral deposits in the hills
beyond the crater which would keep our SOS from going through. The moon
is full of those things.”
Mac’s prediction as to how long the food and water would last turned out
to be fairly close, although it turned out to be four days instead of
five. No one expected the fourth day to roll around with their still
being trapped in the flier, but Captain Eaton was playing safe, as Mac
had said he probably would do.
Those who had invented the equipment making up the escape flier’s
emergency kit had seemingly thought of everything to ease the plight of
those trapped on strange planets. They had not overlooked the boredom of
those awaiting rescue. There was a special cabinet containing tiny
games, and there were also miniature books.
When the inventory was completed and everything was done that could be
done, Captain Eaton distributed the games and books, and everyone
settled down in the flight chairs.
“This isn’t so bad,” Isaac said, sighing and stretching out comfortably
with one of the little books. “I’ve always wanted to read this book on
great poetry, but up to now I just haven’t had the time because it’s so
long. It looks like I’ve finally gotten my chance to read it.”
“There aren’t any books about the circus,” Mr. Klecker said
disappointedly. “I guess I’ll just have to settle for what’s left.”
The butler straightened his bow tie. He had changed back into his full
dress after Isaac had taken over as Ben’s helper.
Garry and Patch started a game of chess, and the rest of the
_Carefree_’s passengers took whatever game or book interested them.
Except for the sadness of Ben’s not being with them, Garry noticed that
there was an air of contentment and optimism on the part of everyone.
Later, he was to be glad that he did not have the talent of seeing into
the future, for if those who were so relaxed now in their cozy hideaway
on the dark moon had only known what was in store for them, they would
not have been in the mood for enjoying _anything_ at this moment.