First Man Part 3

Orville drank some water and ate some bread, and when he swallowed, he felt that circular b.u.mp-b.u.mp grab the bread and chop away at it, just like Polly feeding stale bread into the meat chopper to make stuffing.

I have no business being out here, he moaned.

Here he was riding to the Moon with a tinkering idiot who couldn't fix a kitchen faucet or locate a blown fuse in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Streams of moisture were trickling down the wall. The metal felt cold, like the window of the car on a day when you needed the heater and defroster. Was something going wrong?

Maybe they were out of oxygen. He listened to Harold snoring. Once Harold took a quick breath, and strangled, and turned his head restlessly. His gla.s.ses were slipping off.

Orville looked at his watch. He couldn't believe that just five minutes had gone by since he'd looked at it last. He could hear Harold's two-dollar watch ticking away, almost as loud as his own. His was gaining on Harold's and then they were ticking together so that the combined pounding sent echoes through the s.h.i.+p. He tried to crawl.

He couldn't move.

"Harold!" The ticking of the watches drowned out his voice. "We're in trouble! We're out of oxygen! Help!"

It was like a bad dream. Then something woke him: Harold, stumbling across his legs, turning on the scope and waiting, breathing hard, for it to come to life.

Harold saw that he was awake. "You went to sleep! You shoulda woke me.

It's been six hours!"

Orville said nothing.

"We may be clear past the Moon by now," Harold grumbled.

Orville turned his face to the wall. He heard the hiss as Harold ran in fresh oxygen. "Shoot! Better go down and hook up a new tank." Harold clanked around in the other end of the s.h.i.+p and came back.

"How far out are we?" asked Orville.

"Not far. I'm cutting down the speed some."

"Uh ... how do you plan to take her down?"

"That's an interesting point, now. Let's see...."

"Wouldn't it be better if we just flew up close, not too close, and then headed for home? Of course, there's that problem back there, too."

"Don't you want the beans? I'll eat 'em then."

"But I'd feel better cras.h.i.+ng on the Earth, somehow, than on the Moon--"

"Who says we're going to crash? There are several ways to set her down.

Head first, tail first, but I guess I'll lay her in sideways. It'll be easier to crawl outside."

"What?"

"Sure." Harold was munching beans. Then he rummaged in the supplies and brought out a jar of peaches. He drank off some of the juice. "Rosie never gets enough sugar in these to suit me." The peaches slid off the spoon. He dug in with his fingers and brought out a slice. "Point of the whole thing. Explore. Look around." He tilted the jar to his mouth and let slices fall into his mouth. "Pick up some samples of rocks and things."

"You can get rocks right around home."

"But these are different. These weigh only a quarter as much as the rocks on Earth. Or is it a sixth?"

"In that case--" Orville started gathering up empty bags and cans and putting them into a soup carton.

"What're you doing?"

"Cleaning the place up a little. We can get rid of some of this trash."

"Don't throw those out! I paid a deposit on them." Harold pulled out the empty milk bottles and put them back in the case.

III

Harold had said the landing would be as gentle as laying a baby in its cradle. It wasn't exactly.

He said: "There!"

"Are we down?"

Harold nodded. Orville let go of the railing he'd been hanging onto.

Harold unplugged something.

The s.h.i.+p went dark and started rolling. It was a slow, drunken roll and as noisy as an oil drum going down the court house steps. There was a final hard blow; then the s.h.i.+p rocked and lay still.

Orville sat up. He could hear Harold scrambling about, and then a flashlight came on.

"What happened?"

"Must have landed on the side of a mountain. Rolled down when I turned off our counter-grav. Shoot!" Harold held up something. "Broke a lens in my gla.s.ses. There's another trip to the eye-doctor's."

Orville rescued a couple of bottles that were spilling water. Everything else seemed to be all right. The s.h.i.+p lay on its side now and Harold was crawling through the hole leading to the other compartment. When Orville got through, Harold was hauling something from the other end of the s.h.i.+p.

"What we waiting for?" Orville put his hand on the handle of the outer door. "Last one out is a--"

"Wait a minute! You gotta wear this thing." Harold was laying out a s.p.a.cesuit. He explained how it worked. He didn't object a great deal when Orville volunteered to go out first.

"We can take turns." Harold helped Orville slide his feet into the thing and pull it on. It fitted Orville rather tightly in places, but it seemed to be all right.

"Be careful now." Harold squinted at him through the one lens of his gla.s.ses. "Don't tear her on a rock or anything. You'd pop like a kid's balloon."

"Wait a minute!"

Harold paused, holding the helmet.

"I can't go through with it," Orville said. "I was planning a mean trick on you. I was going to be the first man."

"What difference does that make? We're both in on it together." Harold clapped the helmet down on Orville's shoulders. He tightened some clamps and leaned close and said something which Orville could not hear. Then Orville saw that he wanted to shake hands, so Orville shook his hand.

Harold squirmed back through the hole into the nose, waved and shut the door.