Rocket to Luna

On the morning of the fourth day — morning only because the ship’s chrono said 0730, even though it was still “night” on the Moon — Ted and Forbes left the ship. The temperature outside was 238° below zero.

The insides of their helmets were lined with containers of hot chocolate and vitamin concentrates. The rubber tubes on the containers trailed around the inside of Ted’s helmet like a nest of garden snakes. He had only to move his head in order to reach any one of the tubes with his mouth.

Both he and Forbes wore several layers of woolen underwear beneath their coveralls. They had both put on three pairs of heavy woolen socks, tucking the legs of their coveralls into the tops of the socks. Their suit batteries sent electricity running to the coils that zigzagged through the inside lining of each suit. As long as their batteries lasted, they would be warm.

Their face plates had been sprayed with a frost-resisting chemical, and rubber ducts had been cemented in place just below the plates. These ducts were connected to small blowers which would force blasts of hot air against the face plates should these begin to freeze up.

The belts strapped around their waists carried hammers, screw drivers, pliers, rubber tape, wire.

That was the extent of their equipment — that, and the sled they would tow behind them, the sled carrying the oxygen to sustain them on their trip.

They paused outside the ship, and Ted looked up at the viewport. Dr. Gehardt waved down. Dr. Phelps stood beside him, his features blurred by the distance.

Silently, Ted and Forbes started for the sled.

Forbes stooped down and picked up the wire tow strap.

“Let’s get something straight right from the start, Baker,” he said over the suit radio. Ted listened, knowing in a way what was coming — and fervently wishing he was wrong. “If I had my way, I’d make this trip alone rather than with you. Have you got that?”

“I’ve got it,” Ted said, surprised at the tone of his own voice.

“Good. You’ll obey orders on this trip, and the less conversation the better. All I’m interested in is getting there and back.”

“That’s all I’m interested in,” Ted said.

“Do you know the route we’re taking?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll go over it again, just to make sure.”

Forbes reached into a pouch hanging from his waist strap and pulled out a map which he unfolded clumsily. He laid a heavily gloved hand, forefinger extended, on the paper.

“We’re here in Mare Crisium. Well travel east across Mare Serenitatis, crossing just above the Caucasus Mountains. We’ll pass between the craters Aristillus and Autolycus, past Archimedes, and we should find the supply dump from there. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut out the ‘sir’ stuff, Baker. I told you once before. You don’t deserve the honor of using Air Force tradition.”

“Have it your own way,” Ted said.

“That’s just the way I will have it. Let’s get moving.” Forbes folded the map and pushed it into the pouch. Without another word, he picked up the tow strap again, waiting for Ted to get a grip on it too.

Silently, they began moving.

The sled was light, or at least it was not heavy. They pulled it with comparative ease, trying to match their strides. Ted glanced back occasionally, afraid the cylinders would tumble off the sled, but they seemed to be securely strapped. Set on the inside of his helmet, just to the left of his face plate, and partly obscured by the maze of rubber tubes jutting out of the containers, was a luminous chrono. Ted checked the time: 0735. In just twelve hours they’d have to change oxygen cylinders, ditching the spent ones. 0735, less the five minutes they’d spent studying the map. That made it 0730. They’d have to make the change at 1930.

The Moon seemed quieter than it had been on the day they claimed it. The stars spread around them in unwavering brightness, clear and sharply detailed. What an astronomer’s paradise, Ted thought. No atmosphere to cloud proper viewing. And so far up in the sky! Closer to the planets than Man had ever been. “The gateway to interplanetary flight,” Jack had said. If the trip were a success. Ted thought of Jack now, wondering what was going on at the Space Station. He tried to picture the situation as it would be if Jack had made the trip as he was supposed to. Even assuming Jack’s collarbone had not withstood the strain of acceleration, what then? He consoled himself with the proposition that Dr. Phelps would now have had two injured men on his hands rather than one. Assuming, of course, that Merola would have injured himself even if Jack had been along. That was foolish. Ted certainly didn’t believe that any one factor in a series of events could be changed without subsequently changing the entire series. Jack may not have spotted the loose rivet, in which case Merola would not have attempted to fix it, in which case he would not have been injured, in which case he would have landed the rocket himself — probably with great success.