One Against the Moon (4 page)

Robin looked out from his perch at the top of the ladder. He looked away across the desert to the distant buildings of the Red Sands Station. He started suddenly. Something was blinking in the distance. He strained his eyes. Two tiny white lights were moving toward him from far away. He heard the distant purr of a motor. A jeep was coming to the rocket from the Red Sands Station. Had they seen his flashlight? Were they coming to investigate?

He glanced desperately downward. The ground seemed so far away. He could never climb down the ladder in time to escape detection. The jeep was approaching swiftly. What could he do?

In a flash of inspiration, he saw the open port of the dark closet-space at the rocket's tip. He climbed into it, swinging out from the ladder, hovering over the abyss, swinging his legs into the dark, padded interior. He crammed himself into it, found he fitted it neatly with very little room to spare and, grasping the circular door, pulled it toward him. It swung shut on its oiled hinges, clicked tightly into place.

Robin crouched down, silent.

For a while there was dead silence. Robin wondered if he would be able to hear anything that went on outside, considering the padding of the little space. For once he was thankful for being so short. If he'd been a few inches taller, he'd have found his position very uncomfortable. It was cramped, but not unbearable.

He strained his ears, finally heard the vibrations of the jeep draw up to the base of the rocket and stop. He heard faint sounds which must have been the muffled voices of the jeep's riders. He lay quietly, hoping he would not be discovered.

Outside, the jeep had come to a stop and the two men in the front seat stared around suspiciously. "I'd have sworn I saw a light for a moment out here," said the driver.

The other scratched his head, looked around. "I'd better get out and look around, just to be certain."

They both descended from the jeep. One went over and looked into the trucks and carriers, peering under them for possible hideaways. The other poked around the scaffolding at the base of the rocket. "This is the one they're firing off tomorrow, isn't it?" he asked when the other joined him after a moment.

"Yeah," answered his companion, "or rather this morning. In fact in only a few hours. They've only got to load the main fuel chambers and they're ready." He shined his flashlight on the operations chart, the same one that Robin had examined earlier. "I wonder how come they loaded the other three earlier. That's odd. I thought that stuff couldn't hang around too long."

"Don't you know," said the other, "this is that big top-secret experimental job they were working so fast on this week? Something to do with a new kind of fuel, fairly stable but loaded with radioactive elements. Some type of new compound which is supposed to add an atomic disintegration impetus when it goes off. Heard one of the engineers explain it as something like plutonium particles in suspension which get touched off atomically as they emerge in the rocket blast. They don't know for sure it will work."

The other looked up at the towering structure. "I guess that's how come they're sending it up first with the regular loxygen fuel—so if the whole thing goes bang at once, it'll be high enough up not to blow the rest of us to kingdom come." He walked around the base a bit, stopped, flashed his light down, and picked up something. It was a cardboard sign that had been lying on the ground. He looked at it a moment.

"Hey, this must have fallen from the cargo chamber," he said, showing his comrade the sign.

It read:
Instruments in place. Do not disturb.
He turned it over. On the back it read:
Ready for loading.

"I better put this back where it fell from," he said, adding, "but which side is correct? Did you say they were firing it at six?"

At his companion's assent, he said, "Well, I guess maybe they must have loaded the cameras and radio equipment this afternoon. I'll go up, put this back, and check it."

The man started up the ladder, the same one that Robin had climbed a short while before. When he had arrived before the section where Robin lay hidden, he tried the circular door of that section. It was tightly shut. This signified to him that it was already loaded and without further thought he carefully attached the little sign reading
Do not disturb
to the door.

After a few more minutes' search, the two men climbed back in their jeep and drove back to the barracks-grounds.

Inside the rocket, Robin had been unable to hear what they had been saying. Their voices came to him heavily muffled and distorted and he could not recognize the words. He heard the man come up the scaffolding ladder and try the door. But it had been tight and it had not budged. Then he'd gone down and a little later Robin had heard the jeep drive away.

Robin lay there quietly on the soft padding and wondered how long he should stay in hiding. They might have left a man on guard or they might be keeping an eye on the rocket. If he came out right away, they might spot him. Better wait here a half hour, he said to himself, and then tried to make himself more comfortable.

The day had been a long one and a tense one. He was more tired than he'd thought. The tiny, cramped cubby-hole in the nose of the rocket was pitch-dark, cushioned, and utterly quiet. Robin rested his eyes. Before he knew it, he was sound asleep. The air was close and became stale; Robin's slumber slowly became deep and drugged.

The sun rose at five and with it there arrived the men who would load and launch the rocket—several truckloads in fact, with a couple of tanks of fuel. The volatile liquids were readied for pouring into the tanks and chambers of the first and main firing section. The engineers arrived. They began to check the loads and the preparations.

"The instruments in place?" asked Major Bronck, who was in charge of this operation. His assistant, a civilian engineer, glanced up the ladder.

"According to the notice up there, they are. I don't remember seeing them installed myself, though. May have been done after we left yesterday."

"Who was in charge of them?" the major asked.

"Jackson, sir," the answer came, "but he hasn't been in camp today. Must have been left overnight in town."

The major frowned. "Well, I don't see the instruments around so I guess he loaded them all right. Sloppy way of doing things, though. I don't like it. In fact, I don't particularly like this whole job. It's too hasty, too irregular."

The other smiled, shrugged. "Can't help it. Big rush orders from Washington. They wouldn't even let us put this shot off till Monday. Had to get a fast test on this atomic fuel. I guess it's another of those things they think the Russians are up to."

"Ahh, that's always an excuse for rushing. But I still say haste makes waste. Well, anyway we've got our orders so off it goes this morning. Trackers on the job?"

"Sure, they're right on it. But we've still got to load the animals. This is going to be a high flier and the space-medicine people want in on it. Here's their stuff now."

A light truck rolled up and two men came out carrying a crate. One of the automatic rolling cranes lifted them all up to the nose of the rocket. There, just below the instrument compartment, they opened another port and installed their burden, shutting the compartment again and sealing it.

The major glanced at his watch, looked around. The main chamber was loaded, the tank had departed. At his order, the rolling scaffolding was swiftly detached and driven away. Now the rocket stood alone on its own fins, pointing skyward into the pink and orange dawn, its side a dazzling white, its nose a bright red, each section banded in green.

"How far do you think it will go?" the major asked his assistant.

"Anybody's guess," was the reply. "The fuel is untested and unpredictable. If this trick fuel fails to work, the whole thing will go up maybe six miles and then drop. If the atomic stuff turns into a bomb they'll hear the bang in Las Vegas. If it works as they expect, it might go up several hundred miles, maybe even more. It could make a better satellite rocket than the ones we've got up already. In fact that's what they're hoping. They think they may be able to make this the start of a real space-platform program—for once carrying a pay load up worth the carrying. But who knows?"

The two climbed into a car and drove to where the concrete dugout was located. Entering it they nodded to the communications men and other engineers already gathered. The major took his place at the firing panel. He looked at his timer, waited a few minutes. Gradually the small talk ceased and a hush fell over the little guiding post. The major reached for the firing button.

Back in the rocket, Robin opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed when his head cleared from the grogginess of his deep sleep was a slight hissing noise somewhere below him. The air felt different in his little compartment. Somewhere a thin stream of oxygen was escaping into the chamber.

He twisted around, felt about with his hands, located it. There was a thin line of holes along the seam of the padding underneath him. Now he heard other noises. Below him, a faint chattering, a scolding, the sound of something scratching. He put his ear down near the hole from where the air was issuing and listened.

Yes, he thought to himself, animals. Somebody put some animals in the space just below me. Sounds like monkeys' chattering. Must be where the air is coming from.

He had a headache. Bad air in here, he thought, and realized that had it not been for the animals being placed below him, he might have suffocated in that space. It was then that he fully realized what had happened—that he'd fallen asleep.

The animals hadn't been there when he had first climbed in. So he must have slept for several hours at least. He squirmed around, reflecting on it, still not quite gathering his drugged wits together. That meant that the men must have arrived and started work on this rocket again.

He thought this over, and a great uneasiness came over him. He strove to remember something urgent, something he knew he had to bring back to mind. Something about five o'clock and six o'clock.

Loading time, launching time. Yes! They were firing this rocket at six! But what time was it now? How long had he slept? He looked at the luminous dial of his watch but was chagrined to find it had run down and he'd forgotten to wind it.

He glanced rapidly around his little space, wondering how he could find out whether it was already day. Several glimpses of light hit his eyes. He saw that in three or four places there were tiny glass openings no larger than would admit a thick wire. He tried to look through one, but all he could see was blue sky. It was morning then.

He strained his ears for outside noises, truck engines, men talking. But there was not a sound from outside. Only the faint squeakings of the animals below him. He twisted around again to face the little round door.

It was padded on the inside, it had no handle there, nothing to get a grip on. He scrabbled in the padding with his fingers, reached the rim, and tried to push. There was no give. It was airtight, automatically sealed.

He pushed against it, wondered what to do. He squirmed around against the padding, lay back with his head against the cushioning on the opposite side, his back resting on the floor padding, and put his feet against the side of the little door. Thus braced he was all set to shove the strength of his legs against the door in an effort to push it outward.

He was about to do so when the rocket went off.

Suddenly it felt as if a giant had placed his huge palm squarely on Robin's chest and was pushing him down. As he tried to exert pressure against the door, the counter pressure of the invisible hand increased. For an instant Robin was thunderstruck. Had he suddenly become weak? What was this?

His first emotion, that of amazement, changed in a split second to one of terror at his newly discovered weakness, and again from that to a feeling of stunned shock. There was no invisible hand! It was the rocket itself moving!

Without thinking, Robin struggled to rise, but his muscles could not obey him. In the first seconds the pressure on him was mild, he might have been able to move if he'd given some extra effort. But by the time his astonishment had worn off, the pressure had climbed beyond the limitations of the cramped space and his young muscles.

The rocket had started slowly as these great towering constructions do. The first blasts barely served to push it away from its launching guides. It seemed to tremble in every plate as if precariously perched upon the short, furious blast of yellow. Then the fiery tail lengthened as the tall, thin metal body rose slowly, lifted like a thin white pencil on the roaring cataract of burning gases.

Now it was its own length from the ground, now pushing up faster, giving in split seconds the curious impression that it might topple over at any instant. But the steady rise gained in speed, the rocket pushed away from its burning tail ever faster, the fire turned from yellow to blue, and within a few more blinks of the eye it was hurtling into the sky, vanishing into a dot, and then was beyond sight.

To Robin it seemed again as if a giant hand were pressing down. He felt it spreading over his body, felt himself being pushed relentlessly by superior weight against the matting of the compartment floor. His head was thrust down as if by a giant forefinger of this invisible monster leaning over him. Now it seemed as if the giant, in maniacal malice, was leaning his weight on his hand, pressing on Robin, trying to shove him through the floor if possible.

He gasped for breath, could barely catch it against the growing pressure on his chest. His eyes sank into their sockets and he tried to close them but found the effort too much.

All about him there was a roaring sound, a humming and thrumming, and now began a thin, piercing whistling, which was the air outside rushing past. The whistle rapidly increased to an ear-splitting shriek, then vanished, leaving eddies of unheard auditory vibrations. Robin tried to close his mouth, which had been forced open by the prying finger of pressure. He felt as if in another moment he must cave in, be squashed flat. His brain reeled dizzily, then suddenly a merciful blackness fell over him and he knew no more.