Space Tug Part 26

"How're we going to get back, Joe?"

"The Moons.h.i.+p has rockets on board," Joe told him. "Only they can't stick them in the firing-racks outside. They're stowed away, all s.h.i.+pshape, Navy fas.h.i.+on. After we land, we'll ask politely for rockets to get back to the Platform with. It'll be a tedious run. Mostly coasting--falling free. But we'll make it."

"If everything doesn't blow when we land," said the Chief.

Joe said uncomfortably: "It won't. Not that somebody won't try." Then he stopped. After a moment he said awkwardly: "Look! It's necessary that we humans get to the stars, or ultimately we'll crowd the Earth until we won't be able to stay human. We'd have to have wars and plagues and such things to keep our numbers down. It--it seems to me, and I--think it's been said before, that it looks like there's something, somewhere, that's afraid of us humans. It doesn't want us to reach the stars. It didn't want us to fly. Before that it didn't want us to learn how to cure disease, or have steam, or--anything that makes men different from the beasts."

Haney turned his head. He listened intently.

"Maybe it sounds--superst.i.tious," said Joe uneasily, "but there's always been somebody trying to smash everything the rest of us wanted. As if--as if something alien and hateful went around whispering hypnotically into men's ears while they slept, commanding them irresistibly to do things to smash all their own hopes."

The Chief grunted. "Huh! D'you think that's new stuff, Joe?"

"N-no," admitted Joe. "But it's true. Something fights us. You can make wild guesses. Maybe--things on far planets that know that if ever we reach there.... There's something that hates men and it tries to make us destroy ourselves."

"Sure," said Haney mildly. "I learned about that in Sunday School, Joe."

"Maybe I mean that," said Joe helplessly. "But anyhow there's something we fight--and there's Something that fights with us. So I think we're going to get the Moons.h.i.+p down all right."

Mike said sharply: "You mean you think this is all worked out in advance. That we'd be here, we'd get here----"

The Chief said impatiently, "It's figured out so we can do it if we got the innards. We got the chance. We can duck it. But if we duck it, it's bad, and somebody else has to have the chance later. I know what Joe's saying. Us men, we got to get to the stars. There's millions of 'em, and we need the planets they've got swimming around 'em."

Haney said, "Some of them have planets. That's known. Yeah."

"Those planets ain't going to go on forever with n.o.body 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. s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ces with mottled colorings. But the mountains....

When the s.h.i.+ps were 40 miles high the s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+ps were still descending fast. Joe spoke into his microphone.

"Calling Moons.h.i.+p! 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 splas.h.i.+ngs 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 s.p.a.ce tug's rockets blasted. For the first time since they overtook the Moons.h.i.+p, the tug now had help. The remaining rockets outside the Moons.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+fted a control, and the s.p.a.ce tug swayed. It swayed over to the limit of the tow-chain it had fastened to the Moons.h.i.+p. Joe s.h.i.+fted 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+p 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. n.o.body had emerged from the Moons.h.i.+p 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 Moons.h.i.+p. It looks all right. It couldn't have landed hard."

They went toward the bulk of the s.h.i.+p 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 Moons.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ce-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 Moons.h.i.+p'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.