Hunters Out of Space Part 6

"You promise you wear this if it gets cold," she urged.

"I tell you, mama, I don't need such things. You don't know how tough old Gunnar is."

"Yes, I know. You promise to wear the m.u.f.fler--"

Gunnar took it as he cast a sheepish look at Odin. "All right. All right.

I'll take it--"

After Freida's boat had disappeared, Gunnar tried to joke about the m.u.f.fler. But he was a bit proud of it too, and put it around his neck. The ends almost brushed the ground, but it was so warm that he soon had to roll it up and carry it with him.

The two went for a meal. But Gunnar ate little, grumbling at the food.

Once he a.s.sured Odin that he had never had a chill in his life--that Freida was too thoughtful about him--

"Sure. Sure." Odin agreed.

Then, finally, Gunnar cleared his throat and spoke the things that were in his mind.

"Friend Odin," he began, looking down at his plate as though he expected to see an answer there. "I fear that I have seen my family for the last time.

We are in for a trip beyond the dreams of men. Beyond Ragnarok--to the edge of the night where the mad G.o.ds make bonfires of worn-out suns--where s.p.a.ce itself serves the mad squirrel."

Gunnar paused to mutter a few words to himself and then looked up at Odin with the old smile on his broad face. "Oh, well, a man must go as far as his heart will take him--"

But for all his big talk, Gunnar tossed and muttered that night. And once, Odin heard him cry out--"So, Hagen, the stars swing right at last, and you are mine for the taking. Oh, my lost little boys and my lost little girl--"

And Gunnar, the strong one, sobbed in his sleep.

The s.h.i.+p was loaded at last. The time for departure was near. The crew of The Nebula--over two hundred men, women and children--went quietly into the tunnel. Thousands of relatives and friends had come to the Tower to see them off. There was little weeping though most of the faces were sad and lined.

Ato and Wolden had some last words with the captains who were working upon the rebuilding of Opal.

"We can talk to you from the moon," Wolden was saying. "Beyond that, when we swing into the Fourth Drive, we cannot. May your work prosper."

The last man had filed up the ramp to the sphere at the center of the hour-gla.s.s shaped craft. The door was finally closed and sealed.

There were no portholes in the Nebula. But at least a dozen screens were mounted at convenient locations. These showed the outside world as clearly as a window.

The s.h.i.+p moved along its rails to the Great Door. The door opened. Then it closed behind them. The second door--the one that opened upon the sea--slowly parted and slid back into the walls of the tunnel. The water poured in. For a second or two, all that Odin could see was swirling bubbling water. Then water was all around them. Seaweed still swirled in mad little whirlpools. A fish swam close to an outside scanner, and seemed to peer closer and closer at them until there was only one great staring eye upon the screen. Then it flirted its tail at them and sped away.

The s.h.i.+p moved on. Far out upon the floor of the Gulf, it paused. There were twenty minutes of last-minute checking.

Then, swiftly, as a cork bobs upward, the Nebula arose through the parting waters.

Then the sea was below them and they were still rising. The scanner showed the sea receding. They were looking down at a segment of a curved world.

Far away was land, and Odin saw two dark specks in the distance which he thought were Galveston and Houston. The world below them became half of a sphere that filled the viewer. And then it was a turning globe, growing smaller and smaller. As it diminished, the stars winked out on the screen's background.

The sensation of rus.h.i.+ng upward was no worse than being in a fast elevator.

And yet, as Odin watched the earth recede, he realized that they must have risen from the water at a speed much faster than a bullet.

Soon the earth appeared no larger than a basketball. The viewers were changed. The moon appeared upon it--a growing sphere, with its mountains and craters all silver and black in the reflected light.

Wolden turned to Odin. "See how it is done. We left there quietly. Not a drop of water entered Opal. We left so fast that I doubt if your world even noticed us. Grim Hagen always loved the sensational. There was no need for the havoc that he made--"

In less than an hour, the onrus.h.i.+ng moon filled the screens. And with scarcely a quiver of excitement the Nebula circled it swiftly--and landed.

CHAPTER 7

Wolden and Ato, acting as pilot and co-pilot, set The Nebula down with as much ease as a housewife putting a fine piece of china upon the drainboard.

There was no fuss and no noise. Jack Odin had seen B-47's come in with a great deal more hubbub and dithers than the Nebula had caused.

The screens were still on. Out there all was dark, and a wealth of stars was in the purple-black sky. They seemed larger and brighter. Wolden touched a k.n.o.b and the stars on the screen before them slowly grew larger and larger. "An astronomer's paradise," he said to Odin. "Look closely and you can see Centauri's binary suns. Here, with no refraction, a small telescope can do as well as the best that your people have made. There is no telling what your large ones could do. Ah, the riddles that could be answered."

Odin shrugged. Like almost everyone else, he had often fancied how it would be to land on the moon. Now he was here, and the surface of the moon was blacker than the blackest night he had ever seen. Moreover, there had been no change in gravity. The Nebula had been built to take care of that.

As though sensing his thoughts, Wolden began to explain. "We are less than fifty miles from a spot where the earth could be seen. Not over a degree below the curvature. In fact, if the moon were full, there would be a bit of light here, for a strong light playing upon any globe always lights up over half of it. We are not far from the Heroynian Mountains and the Bay of Dew. Just a few miles within that other side of the moon which none of your people have ever seen before."

Odin remembered Jules Verne's account of a volcano spouting its last breath of life in that zone, but out there was nothing but the dark and the stars that smoldered like sapphires, rubies, and diamonds upon a black velvet sky. There were no shadows. The darkness was solid, as though it had frozen there since old and no spark had ever invaded it.

"Be patient, my friend," Wolden had sensed his thoughts again. "Before long, you will see more of the moon than men have ever known. We sent a smaller s.h.i.+p into s.p.a.ce. Remember! Our scientists are here. In a place beyond your dreams. Look. They are coming now."

Wolden was adjusting the screen again. Far off, something like a long jointed bug with a single glaring light in its head was crawling toward them.

It drew nearer. Jack Odin saw that it was no more than a huge caterpillar tractor with several cars attached, armored and sheathed with sort of a bellows-type connection at each joint. As it neared the Nebula, it played its light around so that Odin got his first glimpse of the moon. Barren, worn, cindered. An ash-heap turned to stone. Puddles and splashes shaped like great crowns, as though liquid rock had congealed at the very height of its torment. Needles of rock, toadstools of rock, bubbles of rock, and gla.s.sy sheets of rock--this was the surface of the moon.

Then the crawling tractor with its cars lumbering along behind it on their endless tracks was below them and playing its single light upward.

An air-lock in the Nebula opened and a huge hose came slowly down. Odin watched it on the screen. It seemed to have been pleated and shoved together like an accordion. Now it opened out in little jerking movements, extending itself about two feet at each writhing twitch. As it grew longer it expanded and was nearly three feet across when it reached the top of the first car. A round door opened. Unseen hands reached the end of the big hose and fastened it securely.

Odin had often dreamed of landing on the moon. There, in the traditional s.p.a.ce-suit, with a plastic bubble about his head, he would leap twenty feet into the air, and maybe even turn a somersault as a gesture of man's escape from the tiring tyranny of gravity. Compared to this dream, his arrival upon the moon was just a bit ridiculous. He and over a score of others simply slid down the inside of the long, slanting hose like a group of third-graders practicing on the fire-escape at the school house.

Larger than the others, Odin landed awkwardly upon the floor of the car.

Before he could jump aside, another pa.s.senger piled upon him. It was a girl, and the perfume in her hair was the same that Maya had always used.

He helped her to her feet and drew her aside just as another voyager came sliding down. The girl was Nea. Somehow, he had an odd feeling that Maya was here. He was just a bit annoyed at Nea, and wished to himself that she wasn't making the trip. She shook her black curls and thanked him softly.

"How awkward of me," she explained. "It wouldn't have happened if I had not been carrying this--"