Journey Into Space (25 page)

I gave him no time to recover. Even as he was rolling over, I was up on my feet and running towards the ship.

Almost immediately I ran slap into Lemmy who, hearing my cries, had turned round to come to my aid.

“Go back,” I yelled. “It’s all right now. Go back.”

I must have looked terrified, for Lemmy, after one glance at my face, stepped aside shouting: “After you, Doc. You go first.”

I didn’t argue, but made for that ladder as fast as my legs would carry me. I could hear Lemmy panting behind me as my hands grasped the rungs and I began to climb towards the airlock.

“Hurry up, Doc,” said Lemmy. “He’s right behind.” I daren’t turn round until I had climbed the first few rungs and given Lemmy the opportunity to put at least his own height between his feet and the ground. Then I looked back, to see the ape man who had attacked me making a clumsy attempt to follow us up the ladder.

“Don’t stop, Doc,” yelled Lemmy. “Keep going.” I kept going. By now Jet had reached the main door and, holding on to the side, was leaning out of it, yelling encouragement at us in our desperate climb. Mitch wasn’t far behind him. Suddenly I realised that Lemmy was not following me so closely. Again I stopped and looked back. He was some thirty or forty feet above the ground, and the ape man was slowly but surely coming up behind. But to my horror Lemmy, instead of climbing, was now descending.

If Lemmy heard Jet or any of us yelling at him, he took no notice but continued his descent until he was only two rungs or so above the ape man’s head. By now there were three others gathered at the bottom of the ship. Lemmy waited as the ape man advanced another rung, and then another. And then I realised what he was up to. Almost as the thought occurred to me, Lemmy went into action.

Letting himself down almost to full arm’s length he began energetically stamping on the ape man’s fingers. The creature let out a series of cries, like a dumb man trying to talk, and then, with a piercing roar, he went crashing down on to the heads of his companions below.

Lemmy began to climb again rapidly and less than thirty seconds later we were all in the airlock and Jet was passing through the cabin hatch to the ladder control. There was a whirr as he pressed the switch and the rungs slid back into the ship, leaving the wall smooth and unclimbable. In spite of this, the creatures down below, including the one who had just fallen, still tried to find the rungs and went through the motions of climbing on the spot.

Lemmy and I were breathing very heavily. I turned and put my hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Lemmy,” I said.

“Forget it, Doc,” he replied. “Let’s get up into the cabin and get away from here.”

We closed the hatch, closed the main door, emptied the airlock, climbed on to our couches and, with our control panels already in position, strapped ourselves in. Soon the televiewer was warm and Jet had Lemmy rotate the forward view towards the sky. As we waited for the Time Travellers to appear, I filled in the last few pages of my diary. A quick check up within Luna had revealed that not only was everything restored to order--in line with the information Jet and Mitch had given the Voice--but we had even been supplied with food and drink for our journey.

“Those Time Travellers certainly must work fast,” said Mitch. “How they ever got the ship into this position, I’ll never fathom out.”

“They must have had dozens of men on this job,” said Lemmy. Then he stopped himself. “Men?” he went on. “What am I saying?”

“I have no idea how they did it without us,” I said, “but I think I know why.”

“Why, Doc?” Jet asked me.

“Because, after the way we reacted, they didn’t want us to see them again.”

“It makes you feel so mean, doesn’t it?” said Lemmy. “We can’t stand the sight of them and yet they do all this for us.”

“They’re an amazing people and no mistake,” said Mitch.

“After this,” Lemmy went on, “I wouldn’t care if I saw a hundred of them. And if I did, I’d shake hands with the lot--if they have hands.”

“See if you can contact them, Jet,” suggested Mitch. “We must thank them.”

“Yes, Jet,” I said. “That’s the least we can do.”

But at that moment there appeared on the screen twenty spots of silvery light. The Time Travellers were waiting.

Perhaps the rate of climb was not as strong as it had been when we first left Earth or perhaps, by now, my body had begun to get used to the varying acceleration rates we had experienced since leaving home. Anyway, I hardly noticed the pressure as we climbed towards the sky.

Eighty seconds later the motor was cut and we were coasting up, out of the atmosphere and into space. On Jet’s order, the rear televiewer was switched in, and we could see the time ships behind us, once again flying in the crescent-shaped formation and peeling off as though to attack.   . .

That’s all there is, Jet,” I said as I closed my journal. “It stops there.”

“Do either of you remember anything about what Doc has just read?” Jet asked Mitch and Lemmy. Neither of them did.

“But I did have a feeling we’d been round to the other side of the Moon before,” said Mitch.

“I had much the same feeling myself,” I told him, “but as for what’s in this diary, it’s all new to me.”

“But if what you’ve written is true, it would account for the fuel and oxygen shortage.”

“And for the food being all different,” added Lemmy.

“They’ll never believe this back on Earth,” said Jet. “I can hardly believe it myself.”

“They’ll either think we’re plumb crazy,” said Mitch, “or we cooked the whole thing up as a practical joke.”

“Hang on a minute,” said Lemmy. “I’ve got an idea.” And with that he went over to the food locker and began rummaging inside it. A moment later he came back to us, his face beaming.

“Here,” he said, “what about this?” It was the stone knife; the very one described in the diary.

Jet took it from Lemmy and turned it over in his hands. “Good heavens,” he said, “then it must be true, every word of it. We would never have picked up a thing like this on the Moon.”

“But we could have brought it with us from Earth,” said Mitch, “to substantiate our story--or Doc could, anyway.”

“Mitch,” I said slowly, “are you accusing me of fixing the whole thing up?”

“Why not? The newspapers back home would pay a lot of money for this sort of story.”

“Now, wait a minute,” interrupted Jet. “Nobody’s fixed anything.”

“Then how can you prove it?” said Mitch sarcastically.

“I don’t know,” said Jet. “Many strange things have happened in the five weeks since we left Earth. I don’t see what further proof you need.”

“We could start digging under the Mediterranean--see if we can find the ruins of that underground city. Very convenient that where we are supposed to have landed is now covered by thousands of feet of water.”

“Lemmy,” said Jet suddenly, “call up Control.”

“Call up Control?” said Mitch. “What for? To be laughed at?”

“No, Mitch, to tell them we’re short of fuel and may have difficulty landing. We’ll look deeper into that diary and all that’s connected with it before we breathe a word to anybody at home.”

“Now you’re talking sense,” said Mitch. “If we’re not careful, all the reception we’ll get will be from a bunch of psychiatrists.”

At that moment Lemmy contacted base and called Jet to the control table.

“Hullo, Earth,” said Jet, “this is Morgan speaking.”

There was a short pause and then the familiar voice from Luna City replied. “Hullo, Jet. Everything OK? You’re dead on course, we’re plotting you all the way.”

“We’re out of fuel,” said Jet flatly.

“What?”

“Yes, and landing may be a bit tricky. It’s most unlikely that we’ll be able to use the motor.”

“Well, if you handle her right, you can glide in; you’ve got bags of room. The whole Outback is at your disposal.”

“I just can’t guarantee to put her down on the launching ground. You may have to go out into the desert and look for us.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be ready. We’ll send a fleet of helicopters out the moment we know you’ve touched down.”

 “Good,” said Jet.

“Anything else?” asked Luna City.

“No, nothing else--not at present,” said Jet. “What news have you got? Anything big been happening back home?”

“No, Jet. You’re the biggest news we’ve had for years. Oh --until this morning.”

“Why? What happened?”

“There’s been another flying saucer scare. The biggest we’ve had since the 1950’s.” “Saucers?” exclaimed Jet.

“Yes,” came the voice from Earth, “and sighted over Australia, too. By a dozen independent eye-witnesses. They were flying too high for anyone to notice any detail--they always are. But there were supposed to be about twenty of them altogether and flying at tremendous speed in a crescent formation. Only half an hour after being seen from Australia they were sighted over America. So you’d better watch out for them, Jet. Maybe they’re trying to steal your thunder.”

Jet turned from the radio control to glance at Lemmy, Mitch and me who were standing behind him. Then he turned back to the microphone.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “we’ll look out for them. We’ll call you again in a couple of hours. And thanks, Control--thanks a lot.”

It was less than two hours after I had read my diary to the rest of the crew that the news of the saucers came over the radio from Control. It was then that I decided that this account of our adventures, based both on the remembered and ‘forgotten’ events recorded in my diary, should be written. Since then four and a half days have passed and we are now close enough to the Earth to attempt a landing. Already Jet has gone into the pilot’s cabin and taken his place at the controls. Whether our glide landing will be successful is an open question--I think we have a fifty-fifty chance. Meanwhile I shall put this book in the food locker--and place the stone knife on it. It will be safe there and well protected in case the worst should happen.

Jet has ordered us to our posts. I must go. . .