"Those planets ain't going to go on forever with nobody using 'em,"
grunted the Chief. "It don't make sense. And things in general do make
sense. All but us humans," he finished with a grin. "And I like us,
anyhow. Joe's right. We'll get by this time. And if we don't--some other
guys'll have to do the job of landing on the Moon. But it'll be
done--as a starter."
"I can see lots of mountains down there. Plain," Mike said quietly.
"What's the radar say?"
Joe looked. Back at the Platform it had shown the curve of the surface
of Earth. Here a dim line was beginning to show on the vertical-plane
screen. It was the curve of the surface of the Moon.
"We might as well get set," said Joe. "We've got time but we might as
well. Space suits on. I'll tighten up the chain. Steering rockets'll do
that. Then we'll take a last look. All firing racks loaded outside?"
"Yeah," said Haney. He grinned wrily. "You know, Joe, I know what I
know, but still I'm scared."
"Me, too," said Joe.
But there were things to do. They took their places. They watched out
the ports. The Moon had seemed a vast round ball a little while back.
Now it appeared to be flattening. Its edges still curved away beyond a
surprisingly nearby horizon. The ring-mountains were amazingly distinct.
There were incredibly wide, smooth spaces with mottled colorings. But
the mountains....
When the ships were 40 miles high the space tug blasted valorously, and
all the panorama of the Moon's surface was momentarily hidden by the
racing clouds of mist. The rockets burned out.
Haney and the Chief replaced the burned-out rockets. They were gigantic,
heavy-bore tubes which they couldn't have stirred on Earth. Now they
loaded them into the curious locks which conveyed them outside the hull
into firing position.
The ring-mountains were gigantic when they blasted again! They were only
20 miles up, then, and some of the peaks rose four miles from their
inner crater floors.
The ships were still descending fast. Joe spoke into his microphone.
"Calling Moonship! Calling----" He stopped and said matter-of-factly,
"I suggest we fire our last blast together. Shall I give the word?
Right!"
The surface of the Moon came toward them. Craters, cracks, frozen
fountains of stone, swelling undulations of ground interrupted without
rhyme or reason by the gigantic splashings of missiles from the sky a
hundred thousand million years ago. The colorings were unbelievable.
There were reds and browns and yellows. There were grays and dusty
deep-blues and streaks of completely impossible tints in combination.
But Joe couldn't watch that. He kept his eyes on a very special gadget
which was a radar range-finder. He hadn't used it about the Platform
because there were too many tin cans and such trivia floating about. It
wouldn't be dependable. But it did measure the exact distance to the
nearest solid object.
"Prepare for firing on a count of five," said Joe quietly. "Five ...
four ... three ... two ... one ... fire!"
The space tug's rockets blasted. For the first time since they overtook
the Moonship, the tug now had help. The remaining rockets outside the
Moonship's hull blasted furiously. Out the ports there was nothing but
hurtling whitenesses. The rockets droned and rumbled and roared....
The main rockets burned out. The steering rockets still boomed. Joe had
thrown them on for what good their lift might do.
"Joe!" said Haney in a surprised tone. "I feel weight! Not much, but
some! And the main rockets are off!"
Joe nodded. He watched the instruments before him. He shifted a control,
and the space tug swayed. It swayed over to the limit of the tow-chain
it had fastened to the Moonship. Joe shifted his controls again.
There was a peculiar, gritty contact somewhere. Joe cut the steering
rockets and it was possible to look out. There were more gritty noises.
The space tug settled a little and leaned a little. It was still. Then
there was no noise at all.
"Yes," said Joe. "We've got some weight. We're on the Moon."
They went out of the ship in a peculiarly solemn procession. About them
reared cliffs such as no man had ever looked on before save in dreams.
Above their heads hung a huge round greenish globe, with a white polar
ice-cap plainly visible. It hung in mid-sky and was four times the size
of the Moon as seen from Earth. If one stood still and looked at it, it
would undoubtedly be seen to be revolving, once in some twenty-four
hours.
Mike scuffled in the dust in which he walked. Nobody had emerged from
the Moonship yet. The four of them were literally the first human beings
ever to set foot on the surface of the Moon. But none of them mentioned
the fact, though all were acutely aware of it. Mike kicked up dust. It
rose in a curiously liquid-like fashion. There was no air to scatter it.
It settled deliberately back again.
Mike spoke with an odd constraint. "No green cheese," he said absurdly.
"No," agreed Joe. "Let's go over to the Moonship. It looks all right. It
couldn't have landed hard."
They went toward the bulk of the ship from Earth, which now was a base
for the military occupation of a globe with more land-area than all
Earth's continents put together--but not a drop of water. The Moonship
was tilted slightly askew, but it was patently unharmed. There were
faces at every port in the hull.
The Chief stopped suddenly. A sizable boulder rose from the dust. The
Chief struck it smartly with his space-gloved hand.
"I'm counting coup on the Moon!" he said zestfully "Tie that, you guys!"
Then he joined the others on their way to the Moonship's main lock.
"Shall we knock?" asked Mike humorously. "I doubt they've got a
door-bell!"
But the lock-door was opening to admit them. They crowded inside.
Commander Brown was waiting for them with an out-stretched hand. "Glad
to have you aboard." And there was a genuine smile creeping across his
face.
* * * * *
Joe talked with careful distinctness into a microphone. His voice took a
little over a second to reach its destination. Then there was a pause of
the same length before the first syllable of Sally's reply came to him
from Earth.
"I've reported to your father," said Joe carefully, "and the Moonship
has reported to the Navy. In a couple of hours Haney and the Chief and
Mike and I will be taking off to go back to the Platform. We got rockets
from the stores of the Moonship."
Sally's voice was surprisingly clear. It wavered a little, but there was
no sound of static to mar reception.
"Then what, Joe?"
"I'm bringing written reports and photographs and first specimens of
geology from the Moon," Joe told her. "I'm a mailman. It'll probably be
sixty hours back to the Platform--free fall most of the way--and then
we'll refuel and I'll come down to Earth to deliver the reports and
such."
Pause. One second and a little for his voice to go. Another second and
something over for her voice to return.
"And then?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Joe. "What day is today?"
"Tuesday," said Sally after the inevitable pause. "It's ten o'clock
Tuesday morning at the Shed."
Joe made calculations in his mind. Then he said:
"I ought to land on Earth some time next Monday."
Pause.
"Yes?" said Sally.
"I wondered," said Joe. "How about a date that night?" Another pause.
Then Sally's voice. She sounded glad.
"It's a date, Joe. And--do you know, I must be the first girl in the
world to make a date with the Man in the Moon?"