A Fall of Moondust

It was not, however, going to happen to Auriga. The unbearable fury of the braking jets was already splashing over the rocks, blasting skyward the dust and cosmic debris that had not been disturbed in thrice a billion years. For a moment the ship hovered in delicate balance only centimeters off the ground; then, almost reluctantly, the spears of flame that supported her retracted into their scabbards. The widely spaced legs of the undercarriage made contact, their pads tilted according to the contours of the ground, and the whole ship rocked slightly for a second as the shock absorbers neutralized the residual energy of impact.

For the second time inside twenty-four hours, Maurice Spenser had landed on the Moon. That was a claim that very few men could make.

“Well,” said Captain Anson, as he got up from the control board, “I hope you're satisfied with the view. It's cost you plenty—and there's still that little matter of overtime. According to the Space-Workers' Union —”

“Have you no soul, Captain? Why bother me with such trivia at a time like this? But if I may say so without being charged any extra, that was a very fine landing.”

“Oh, it's all part of the day's work,” replied the skipper, though he could not conceal slight signs of pleasure. “By the way, would you mind initialing the log here, against the time of landing.”

“What's that for?” asked Spenser suspiciously.

“Proof of delivery. The log's our prime legal document.”

“It seems a little old-fashioned, having a written one,” said Spenser. “I thought everything was done by nucleonics these days.”

“Traditions of the service,” replied Anson. “Of course, the ship's flight recorders are running all the time we're under power, and the trip can always be reconstructed from them. But only the skipper's log gives the little details that make one voyage different from another—like 'Twins born to one of the steerage passengers this morning' or 'At six bells, sighted the White Whale off the starboard bow. '”

“I take it back, Captain,” said Spenser. “You do have a soul, after all.” He added his signature to the log, then moved over to the observation window to examine the view.

The control cabin, a hundred and fifty meters above the ground, had the only direct-vision windows in the ship, and the view through them was superb. Behind them, to the north, were the upper ramparts of the Mountains of Inaccessibility, ranging across half the sky. That name was no longer appropriate, thought Spenser; he had reached them, and while the ship was here it might even be possible to do some useful scientific research, such as collecting rock samples. Quite apart from the news value of being in such an outlandish place, he was genuinely interested in what might be discovered here. No man could ever become so blase that the promise of the unknown and the unexplored completely failed to move him.

In the other direction, he could look across at least forty kilometers of the Sea of Thirst , which spanned more than half his field of view in a great arc of immaculate flatness. But what he was concerned with was less than five kilometers away, and two below.

Clearly visible through a low-powered pair of binoculars was the metal rod that Lawrence had left as a marker, and through which Selene was now linked with the world. The sight was not impressive—just a solitary spike jutting from an endless plain—yet it had a stark simplicity that appealed to Spenser. It would make a good opening; it symbolized the loneliness of man in this huge and hostile Universe that he was attempting to conquer. In a few hours, this plain would be far from lonely, but until then that rod would serve to set the scene, while the commentators discussed the rescue plans and filled in the time with appropriate interviews. That was not his problem; the unit at Clavius and the studios back on Earth could handle it in their stride. He had just one job now—to sit here in his eagle's nest and to see that the pictures kept coming in. With the big zoom lens, thanks to the perfect clarity of this airless world, he could almost get close-ups even from here, when the action started.

He glanced into the southwest, where the sun was lifting itself so sluggishly up the sky. Almost two weeks of daylight, as Earth counted time, still lay ahead. No need, then, to worry about the lighting. The stage was set.

CHAPTER 17

Chief Administrator Olsen seldom made public gestures. He preferred to run the Moon quietly and efficiently behind the scenes, leaving amiable extroverts like the Tourist Commissioner to face the newsmen. His rare appearances were, therefore, all the more impressive-as he intended them to be.

Though millions were watching him, the twenty-two men and women he was really addressing could not see him at all, for it had not been thought necessary to fit Selene with vision circuits. But his voice was sufficiently reassuring; it told them everything that they wanted to know.