Rocket to Luna

Ted pushed the wire through a ring in his own belt as Forbes dropped his legs into the yawning chasm. He clung to the lip with gloved hands as he studied the sides of the cleft for another foothold. He moved his hands then and began moving deeper into the fissure. The blackness swallowed him up instantly.

Ted paid out the wire, watching the top of Forbes’s helmet.

“Bottom,” Forbes called. There was a moment of silence, and then Forbes shouted, “Frost, Baker! There’s frost down here.”

Ted felt his heart lurch against his ribs. “That means water.”

“I’ve found something, Baker. By jumping Jehoshaphat, this is really something!”

“What is it?” Ted swallowed hard, waiting.

“I’m coming up. Give me room. I’m going to try a jump.”

Ted backed away, his eyes glued to the fissure. He could hear Forbes’s frantic breathing over the radio, could sense the lieutenant’s excitement like an electric shock that ran between them. Forbes suddenly sailed out of the cleft, dropping to the ground several feet in front of Ted. He fell to his hands and knees, then quickly rose.

“Look! Take a look at this!”

He opened his glove, and a bright spot of green appeared against the palm of his hand.

It was small, its leaves pulled in tightly around it. It was dark green — although the color may have seemed darker because of Ted’s face plate — and it seemed to be curled up into a tight ball as protection against the cold. The roots were torn where Forbes had ripped it from the rocks. But it was unmistakably green, unmistakably alive!

“A plant,” Ted murmured.

He lifted his head, and for an instant — despite the darkened face plates — he thought he detected a spark of rapport in Forbes’s eyes.

“Life,” Forbes said, his voice hushed in awe. “Life, Baker. Life on the Moon. Life.”

“In spite of the extreme heat and cold,” Ted said. “Life.”

“It was under a jutting ledge,” Forbes said, “growing close to the wall. Probably not enough sun reaches it to burn it out, and there’s just enough water to keep it going. But do you know what this means, Baker? Life on the Moon. By jumping Jehoshaphat we’ve found life!”

He took a step closer to Ted, and he seemed almost ready to embrace him. He stopped, hesitated for a moment like a man on the edge of a diving board.

He stood there in indecision, his eyes glowing behind the darkened face plate, the tiny plant in the center of his open, outstretched hand.

That was when the meteors began to fall.

Chapter 13 Oxygen Trouble

Nearly 2,000 meteors hit the Earth every day, many of them the size of a dot. No one pays them any mind. They strike the Earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about one billion every twenty-four hours. Most of them ignite instantly in the upper air. On Earth hardly anyone notices the tiny flame, and the meteors shower down in a gentle rain of ash.

People go about their business as usual, oblivious of the steady bombardment, oblivious of the fact that five tons of ash is sprinkling the Earth’s surface every day, as it has been doing for perhaps the past two billion years. No one bothers about this harmless, invisible, cosmic dust. No one has to bother.

The Moon is another story.

The Moon has no atmosphere. Take away this protective layer of air and there’s nothing to stop a meteor, nothing to ignite it, nothing to turn it into harmless dust. It will strike the surface with the velocity of a bullet, viciously tearing at the wasted ground.

At first, Ted didn’t know quite what was happening. He was staring at the spot of green on Forbes’s open hand, sharing in the thrill of discovery. He looked at the plant, and everything was suddenly all right. The trip was worth it, the hardship, everything. He no longer had any regrets, and he was ready to throw his arms around Forbes and do an impromptu dance when he noticed the pumice around them exploding in furious little spurts of dust.

There was still no sound. But the ground was erupting all around them, as if the Moon were bursting a hundred little blisters at the same time.

Forbes stopped dead in his tracks, his palm still outstretched, the dash of green against the gray glove looking somehow pathetic.

When his voice came over the suit radio, it was edged with panic. “Meteors!” he shouted.

They both turned instantly, pulling up abruptly as they confronted the lip of the cleft. Forbes struggled to keep his balance, almost tumbling into the black slit as the speeding pellets dropped around them like hailstones.

It was something out of a nightmare, Ted felt. The land of a nightmare where someone is shooting at you, but the gun is making no sound, is showing no flash of fire. The pea-sized meteors spilled around them like ball bearings gone berserk, but there was none of the feeling of danger. It was a danger implied, a danger born of knowledge.

They ran, but not because their senses were screaming and not because the meteors were frightening in themselves. There is nothing frightening about silence.