Rocket to Luna

Forbes smiled sardonically. “That’s beautiful logic, Cap,” he said. “Except that the comparison is a false one. We won’t be lost if we refuse to accept Baker’s gracious assistance.”

Merola shrugged, spreading his hands wide. “Suppose we put it to a vote?”

“Suits me fine.”

“All right,” Dr. Phelps said.

Dr. Gehardt nodded his approval.

“There are two courses we can follow,” Merola said. “One: we can forget Baker is with us, in which case we’d treat him like a common stowaway under temporary arrest.”

Ted bit his lip and stared down at the men below him. Outside the speeding ship, the stars passed no judgment. They stared at the shining metal pellet with blind, unwinking eyes.

“Or,” Merola continued, “we can accept him into the crew as an informed member with helpful knowledge. We’ll then suspend the stowaway charges until we get back to Earth.”

“If we get back to Earth under the circumstances,” Forbes put in.

“Shall we vote?” Merola asked. He waited, taking the men’s silence for approval.

Ted crossed his fingers and stared up at the overhead.

“All right,” Merola said, “all those in favor of treating Baker like a member of the crew, say aye.”

Only one voice said, “Aye.” It was Merola’s own.

A significant silence hung on the air in the cabin. Ted squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“All those in favor of placing Baker under temporary arrest as a stowaway, say aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

Again the silence, punctuated only by the heavy breathing of the men.

“I think you’re making a mistake,” Merola said.

Ted turned his head toward the bulkhead. The stars seemed to have gone out suddenly.

The freeze began then.

Ted could compare it to nothing he had ever experienced before. He simply ceased to exist as far as any other member of the crew was concerned. Merola spoke to him only to give instructions and orders, reluctantly abiding by the majority decision of the other men. The rest of the crew ignored him completely. If Ted came within reaching distance of any of the men, they invariably sought another part of the cabin.

During meals, they clustered together into a tight, forbidding knot, their backs to him. It was cold, a coldness generated by men who felt they were doing the right thing, a coldness more complete than that of the void outside the ship.

Ted was utterly miserable.

Coupled with the methodical ostracizing he suffered, he also had to contend with the uncomfortable conditions of space travel. Weightlessness on the short hop to the Station had been a comparative lark. It had become something more than that now.

There was a choice to be had, of course.

You could drift all over the small cabin, feeling like a gas-inflated tube, your stomach threatening to ooze out of your ears every time you moved.

Or you could wear the heavy, magnetized sandals that enabled you to establish the most synthetic of gravities in that they allowed you to walk on the deck if you so chose.

They also allowed you to walk on the bulkheads, or on the overhead, or indeed anywhere that boasted a metal surface.

The trouble was simply that the sandals were so heavy. After ten minutes of struggling around the cabin with them, having to fight free of the magnetic force every time you wanted to lift a foot and place it down again, your leg muscles were simply too tired to hold you up.

Those were the choices, and Ted pardoned his own pun as he mused that neither of them was exactly choice.

Tied in with the problem of motion was the problem of nourishment. Eating was a habit Ted had long become used to. This, and drinking, were simply a matter of form back on Earth, simple processes that could be undertaken with the eyes blindfolded and one hand tied behind the back. Not so in space.

Drinking was not too difficult at all. Naturally, open cups and bottles could not be used. When a liquid is weightless, it simply has no reason to leave a bottle, and it will not pour if the bottle it tilted. On the other hand, if the bottle were shaken, all of the contents would come rushing out in one sudden splash. All liquids were placed in closed containers made of plastic. When the sides of these containers were squeezed, the liquid squirted out.

It meant getting used to tasting milk in squirts rather than gulps, but Ted soon became adjusted to it.

Eating was another matter. When everything is weightless, a beefsteak will float about as aimlessly as will a body. A plate, unfortunately, will follow the same procedure. If a beefsteak were conceivably placed on a platter, then it would promptly float up toward the overhead at the slightest jar. And if someone inadvertently let go of a plate, it too would sail merrily off to another portion of the cabin.

As a result, the plates were made of magnetized metal, so that they clung to any metal surface upon which they were placed. Each plate was approximately two inches deep, with a plastic top covering it. The top was divided into four quarters which slid open at a touch of the finger tips.