Rocket to Luna

He lifted his foot and was about to put it down when the ground disappeared beneath it. He pitched forward slowly, like a balloon falling on the wind. He was rolling over then, and the tubes slithered over his face like a nest of snakes disturbed. He kept rolling, head over heels, down, down, seeing nothing, feeling only the sharp prods of rocks as they scraped against his suit.

Finally he stopped. He was lying flat on his back and the tubes were trailing over his face. He took a deep breath, despair flooding his senses. They’d never make it now, never. All this time wasted. He shook his head, surprised when his chin bumped against one of the tubes.

The tubes!

The fall had rearranged them, tearing some loose from their moorings. He tried to locate the troublesome tube that was blocking the hot-air duct.

He found it, and his heart skipped an anxious beat. It was hanging several inches from his mouth. He wet his lips and then stuck out his tongue. The tip of his tongue nudged the tube, filling his mouth with a rubbery taste. He craned his neck forward and suddenly closed his mouth around the tube. Elation filled him as he yanked back his head. The tube was firmly stuck to the duct.

A new thought sent terror racing through his brain. Suppose the duct had frozen over. Suppose...

Viciously, he yanked at the tube again.

It came free this time, almost pulling the cylinder from the wall of the helmet. Quickly he fumbled with the lever on the breastplate outside his suit. He heard a rush of air into his helmet, felt the blast of warmth as it reached curling fingers for his face.

He watched the heat attack the ice slowly. Impatiently, he turned up the lever to full, watching the ice turn shiny and wet, watching it finally dissolve into big chunks that slithered down the plexiglass and fell against his chest.

He could see a little now. The heat kept steaming up against the ice, boring a path through the whiteness. The face plate was getting clearer. He could make out a few rocks now. And suddenly the remaining ice seemed to crumble completely, like the ice around the freezing unit of a refrigerator when the box is being defrosted. It fell onto his chest and slithered down the length of his body. The face plate was completely clear now.

He saw the sled first, and he ran to it, shaking Forbes.

“Dan, Dan,” he cried.

“Straight ahead.” Forbes mumbled.

Ted stole a quick glance at the chrono. They had been traveling for almost twelve hours, the last few hours in total blindness. He tore his eyes from the luminous dial and looked out through the face plate.

He blinked his eyes, refusing to believe what he saw.

Archimedes!

No, no, it couldn’t be!

But it was, it was! Archimedes! He’d have recognized the crater anywhere. That meant... that meant the supplies! The supplies were only three miles away. Three miles — why he could make that in a matter of minutes. He didn’t bother with the strap this time. He picked up Forbes, getting a firm grip beneath his knees and his shoulders.

He began leaping across the face of the Moon, a weird bullfrog hopping across the night.

The supply rockets sprawled across the pumice like scattered bowling pins. Plaster of Paris dotted the pumice with white brilliance, a marker for the Moon explorers. There were four rockets all told, and Ted raced for the nearest one, prying open the hatch and rummaging inside for the oxygen cylinders he needed so badly. He could hear Forbes’s breath rasping into the suit radio, harsh and uneven. He imagined there was very little air left in Forbes’s suit, and he could begin to feel the strain of breathing the thin oxygen in his own helmet. When he found the stack of cylinders, he almost screamed in glee. He strapped one onto Forbes’s back immediately, adjusted the flow to full, shooting a fast stream into the weakening lieutenant’s helmet.

He put a container onto his own back, and shot a sweet, steady stream into his helmet. He sat back against the bulkhead of the supply rocket, a long sigh escaping his lungs.

After a while he adjusted the flow of Forbes’s oxygen to normal.

Tremulously, he called, “Dan? Dan?”

There was a long time before any answer came. When it did come, it was low and weak.

“Ted?” A pause, and then, “We made it, didn’t we?”

Chapter 15 Breakdown

They rested for a moment or two and then went to work. They were anxious to get started immediately, knowing they had lost time already — and knowing that the rising sun would not wait for them. They had to get back to the ship before it was bathed in sunlight, or they might not get back at all.

They worked quickly, Forbes directing Ted, since he knew exactly which rockets bore which materials. The rockets were painted in various colors. The yellow rocket bore all the food they would need. They paid no attention to this one. The green rocket contained batteries, tools, metal, all the equipment necessary for the start of a Lunar base. They ignored this one too.