The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (9 page)

‘He’s going to land! Must be in trouble!’

‘No—he’s quite safe. Oh,
very
pretty! That pilot knows his stuff!’

Slowly the ship fell out of sight below the rim of the mountains, still keeping on a level keel.

‘He’s down safely. If he’s not there’ll be a record firework display in just about ten seconds and we’ll feel the shock over here.’

With a mingling of anxiety and morbid expectation the two men waited for a minute, eyes fixed on the horizon. Then they relaxed. There had been no distant explosion, no trembling of the ground underfoot.

‘All the same, he may be in trouble. We’d better ask Signals to give him a call.’

‘OK—let’s go.’

The Observatory transmitter, when they reached it, was already in action. Someone else had reported a ship down beyond Pico and the operator was calling it on the general lunar frequency. ‘Hello, ship landing near Pico—this is Astron calling. Are you receiving me? Over.’

The reply came after a considerable interval, during which the call was repeated several times. ‘Hello, Astron, receiving you clearly. Pass your message please. Over.’

‘Do you need any assistance? Over.’

‘No thank you. None at all. Out.’

‘OK. Astron out.’

The operator switched off his carrier and turned to the others with a gesture of annoyance. ‘That’s a nice polite answer for you! Translated into English it means “Mind your own business. I won’t give you my call sign. Good-day.”’

‘Who do you think he is?’

‘No doubt about it. Government ship.’

Jamieson and Wheeler looked at each other with a simultaneous surmise. ‘Maybe the doc was right, after all.’

Wheeler nodded in assent. ‘Mark my words, pardner,’ he said, ‘there’s uranium in them thar hills. And I wish there weren’t!’

II

During the next two weeks ship after ship dropped down beyond Pico and, after an initial outburst of speculation, the astronomers ceased to comment on the sight. Quite obviously something important was going on out in the Sea and the theory of the uranium mine was generally accepted because nobody could think of a better.

Presently the Observatory staff began to take their energetic neighbours for granted and forgot about them except when rocket glare fogged important photographic plates. Then they went storming in to see the Director, who calmed them down as best he could and promised to make the appropriate representations in the proper quarters.

With the coming of the long lunar day Jamieson and Wheeler settled down to the tedious work of analysing the data they had collected during the night. It would be fourteen days before they saw the stars again and could make any further observations. There was plenty to do, for an astronomer spends only a very small portion of his time actually working with his instruments. The most important part of his life is spent sitting at a desk piled with sheets of paper, which rapidly become covered with mathematical calculations or doodles, according to the flow of inspiration.

Though both Wheeler and Jamieson were young and keen, an unbroken week of this was quite enough for them. In the slow cycle of lunar time it was generally realised that tempers began to get frayed around midday and from then until just before nightfall there was usually something of an exodus from the Observatory.

It was Wheeler who suggested they take one of the Observatory tractors and head toward Pico on a voyage of exploration. Jamieson thought it was an excellent scheme though the idea was not as novel to him as to his friend. Trips out into the Sea of Rains were a popular diversion among the astronomers when they felt they had to get away from their colleagues.

There was always the chance of finding something interesting in the way of minerals or vegetation but the main attraction was the superb scenery. Also there was a certain amount of adventure and even danger about the enterprise that gave it an additional charm. Not a few tractors had been lost and although rigorous safety precautions were enforced there was always a chance that something might go wrong.

The almost complete absence of any atmosphere on the Moon had made economical flying impossible since rockets could not be used for journeys of only a few score miles. So practically all short-range lunar travel was done in the powerful electric tractors universally known as
Caterpillars
or, more briefly, ‘cats’.

They were really small spaceships mounted on broad tracks that enabled them to go anywhere within reason, even over the appallingly jagged surface of the Moon. On fairly smooth terrain they could do up to eighty miles an hour but normally they were lucky to manage half that speed. The low gravity enabled them to climb fantastic slopes and they could if necessary haul themselves out of vertical pits by means of their built-in winches. One could live in the larger models for months at a time in reasonable comfort.

Jamieson was a more-than-expert driver and knew the road down the mountains perfectly. As lunar highways went it was one of the best and carried a good deal of traffic between the Observatory and the port of Aristillus. Nevertheless for the first hour Wheeler felt that his hair would never lie down again.

It usually took newcomers to the Moon a long time to realise that slopes of one-in-one were perfectly safe if treated with respect. Perhaps it was just as well that Wheeler was a novice for Jamieson’s technique was so unorthodox that it would have filled a more experienced passenger with real alarm.

Why Jamieson was such a desperate driver was a paradox that had caused much discussion among his colleagues. Normally he was painstaking and careful, even languid in his movements. No one had ever seen him really annoyed or excited. Many people thought him lazy but that was a libel. He would spend weeks working out a theory until it was absolutely watertight—and then would put it away for two or three months to have another look at it later.

Yet once at the controls of a cat this quiet and peaceloving astronomer became a daredevil driver who held the unofficial record for almost every tractor drive in the northern hemisphere. More than likely the explanation lay in a boyhood desire to be a spaceship pilot, a dream that had been foiled by physical disability.

They shot down the last foothills of the Alps and put into the Sea of Rains like a miniature avalanche. Now that they were on lower ground Wheeler began to breathe again, thankful to have left the vertiginous slopes behind. He was not so pleased when with a colossal crash Jamieson drove the tractor off the road and out into the barren plain.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ he cried.

Jamieson laughed at his consternation. ‘This is where the rough stuff begins. The road goes southwest to Aristillus here and we want to get to Pico. So from now on we’re in country where only half a dozen tractors have ever been before. To cheer you up I might say Ferdinand is one of them.’

‘Ferdinand’ was now plunging ahead at twenty miles an hour with a swaying motion Wheeler found rather disconcerting. If he had lived in an age that had known of ships he might have been familiar with it.

The view was disappointing, as it always is at ‘sea’ level on the Moon, owing to the nearness of the horizon. Pico and all the more distant mountains had sunk below the skyline and the plain ahead looked uninviting as it lay in the blazing sun. For three hours they forged steadily across it, passing tiny craterlets and yawning crevasses that seemed of indefinite depth.

Once Jamieson stopped the tractor and the two men went out in their space-suits to have a look at a particularly fine specimen. It was about a mile wide and the Sun, now nearly at the zenith, was shining straight into it. The bottom was quite flat as though, when the rock had split, lava had flowed in from the depths beneath and solidified. Wheeler found it very difficult to judge just how far away the floor was.

Jamieson’s voice came over the suit radio. ‘See those rocks down there?’

The other strained his eyes and could barely make out a few markings on the apparently smooth surface far below.

‘Yes, I think I see the ones you mean. What about them?’

‘How big would you say they are?’

‘Oh, I don’t know—maybe a yard across.’

‘Hmmm. See the smaller one near the side?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that isn’t a rock. That was a tractor that missed the bend.’

‘Good Lord! How? It’s plain enough.’

‘Yes, but this is midday. Toward evening, when the Sun’s low, it’s the easiest thing in the world to mistake a shadow for a crevasse—and the other way round.’

Wheeler was very quiet as they walked back to their machine. Perhaps, after all, they had been safer in the mountains.

At length the great rock mass of Pico came once more into sight until presently it dominated the landscape. One of the most famous landmarks on the Moon it rose sheer out of the Sea of Rains, from which, ages ago, volcanic action had extruded it. On Earth it would have been completely unclimbable. Even under one-sixth of Earth’s gravity only two men had ever reached its summit. One of them was still there.

Moving slowly over the jagged terrain the tractor skirted the flanks of the mountain. Jamieson was searching for a place where the cliffs could be scaled so they could get a good view out over the Sea. After travelling several miles he found a spot that met with his approval.

‘Climb those cliffs? Not on your life!’ expostulated Wheeler when Jamieson explained his plan of action. ‘Why, they’re practically vertical and half a mile high!’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ retorted the other. ‘They’re quite ten degrees from the vertical. And it’s so easy to climb here, even in a suit. We’ll be tied together and if one of us falls the other can still pull him up with one hand. You don’t know what it’s like until you’ve tried.’

‘That’s true of all forms of suicide. Oh, all right—I’m game if you are.’

Reluctantly Wheeler climbed into his space-suit and followed his friend through the airlock. Jamieson was carrying a small telescope, a long nylon rope and other climbing equipment, which he draped around Wheeler on the pretext that, as he would have to go ahead, his hands had better be free.

Seen from close quarters the cliffs were even more forbidding. They seemed not merely vertical but overhanging and Wheeler wondered how his friend intended to tackle them. Secretly he hoped the whole campaign would be called off.

It was not to be. After a brief survey of the rock face Jamieson tied one end of the rope around his waist and, with a short run, leaped toward a projection thirty feet up the face of the cliff. He caught it with one hand, transferred his grip to the other and hung for a while, admiring the view. Since he weigh only forty pounds with all his equipment this was not as impressive a performance as it would have been on Earth. However, it served its purpose of reassuring Wheeler.

After a while Jamieson grew tired of hanging by one arm and brought the other into action. With incredible speed he clambered up the face of the cliff until he was fully a hundred feet above the ground. Here he found a ledge that was to his liking as it was every bit of twelve inches wide and enabled him to lean back against the rock face.

He switched on his headset and called down. ‘Hello, Con! Ready to come up?’

‘Yes. What do you want me to do?’

‘Is the rope tied around you?’

‘Just a minute. OK.’

‘Right! Up we go!’

Jamieson started to haul in the rope and grinned at the other’s sudden exclamation of surprise as he found himself hoisted unceremoniously into the air. When he had been lifted twenty or thirty feet Wheeler recovered his poise and began to climb the rope himself, so that as a result of their joint efforts it was only a few seconds before he had reached the ledge.

‘Easy enough, isn’t it?’

‘So far—but it still looks a long way.’

‘Then just keep on climbing and don’t bother to look. Hold on here until I call you again. Don’t move until I’m ready—you’re my anchor in case I fall.’

After half an hour Wheeler was amazed to find how far they had risen. The tractor was no more than a toy at the foot of the cliffs and the horizon was many miles away. Jamieson decided they were high enough and began to survey the plain with his telescope. It was not long before he found the object of their search.

About ten miles away the largest spaceship either of them had ever seen lay with the sunshine glinting on its sides. Close to it was an enormous hemispherical structure rising out of the level plain. Through the telescope men and machines could be seen moving around its base. From time to time clouds of dust shot into the sky and fell back to the ground again as if blasting were in progress.

‘Well, there’s your mine,’ said Wheeler after a long scrutiny.

‘It doesn’t look much like a mine to me,’ replied the other. ‘I’ve never seen a lunar mine covered over like that. It almost looks as if a rival observatory is starting up. Maybe we’re going to be driven out of business.’

‘We can reach it in half an hour, whatever it is. Shall we go over to have a look?’

‘I don’t think it would be a very wise thing to do. They might insist on our staying.’

‘Hang it all, there isn’t a war on yet and they’d have no right to detain us. The Director knows where we are and would raise hell if we didn’t come back.’

‘Not in your case, my lad. However, I guess you’re right. They can only shoot us. Let’s go.’

Climbing down the cliff, unlike a similar operation on Earth, was easier than going up it. Each took turns lowering the other to the full length of the rope, then scrambling down the cliff face himself, knowing that even if he slipped the other could easily check his fall. In a remarkably short time they had reached level ground again and the faithful Ferdinand set out once more across the plain.

An hour later, having been delayed by a slight mistake in bearings for which each blamed the other, they found the dome ahead of them and bore down upon it at full speed, after first calling the Observatory on their private wave length and explaining exactly what they intended to do. They rang off before anyone could tell them not to.

It was amusing to watch the commotion their arrival caused. Jamieson thought it resembled nothing so much as an ant heap that had been well stirred with a stick. In a very short time they found themselves surrounded by tractors, hauling machines and excited men in space-suits. They were forced by the sheer congestion to bring Ferdinand to a halt.