Robert Heinlein - Destination Moon

The hour finally crept up to them. Traub, was in his couch at the radio controls while the rest crowded at the eastern port. What they needed to say had been made one message:

A formal claim to the Moon, setting forth time and • place of landing, a long and technical message to Hastings, and finally code groups supplied by Bowles. Traub would send it all out as one, many times if necessary.

"I see it!" It was Corley who claimed the distinction. Barnes stared at the spot. "Your imagination, Doe; a highlight on the peaks." The sun was behind them,

"afternoon" by local time; the mountains were bright in

the east. --

Bowles put in, "No, Jim. There's something there." Barnes turned. "Start sending!"

Traub closed his key.

The message was repeated, with listening in between, time after time. An arc of Earth slowly, terribly slowly, crept above the horizon. No answer came back, but they did not despair, so little of Earth was as yet in sight. Finally Barnes turned to Corley. "What does that look like, Doe? The part we can see, I mean."

Corley peered at it. "Can't say. Too much cloud."

"It looks like ocean. If so, we won't get a jingle until it's higher."

Corley's face slowly became horror struck. "What's the matter?" demanded-Barnes.

"Good griefi I forgot to figure the attitude."

"Huh?"

Corley did not answer. He jumped to the desk, grabbed the Nautical Almanac, started scribbling, stopped, and drew a diagram of the positions of Earth, Sun, and Moon. On the circle representing the Earth he drew a line for the Greenwich meridian.

Barnes leaned over him. "Why the panic?"

"That is ocean, the Pacific Ocean." Bowles joined' them. "What about it?"

"Don't you see? Earth turns to the east; America is • -- moving away-already out of sight." Corley hurriedly consulted his earlier calculations. "Earth reaches maximum elevation in about, uh, four hours and eight minutes. Then it drops back."

Traub pushed up an earphone. "Can't you guys shut up?" he protested. "I'm trying to listen."

Corley threw down his pencil. "It doesn't matter, Mannie. You aren't ever going to be in line-of-sight with NAA."

"Huh? What did you say?"

"The Earth is faced wrong. We're seeing the Pacific Ocean now, then we'll see Asia, Europe, and finally the Atlantic. By the time we should see the United States it will have dropped back of the mountains."

"You mean I'm just wasting time?"

"Keep sending, Mannie," Barnes said quietly, "and keep listening. You may pick up -- another station."

Bowles shook his head. "Not likely."

"Why not? Hawaii may still be in sight. The Pearl Harbor station is powerfuL"

"Provided they have rigged a beam on us, same as NAA."

"Well, keep trying, Mannie."

Traub slipped his earphone back in place. Bowles went on, "It's nothing to get excited about. We'll be picked up anywhere." He chuckled. "Soviet stations will be listening to us shortly. They will be broadcasting denials at the same time stations in Australia are telling the world the truth."

Corley looked up. "But I won't get to talk to Hastings!"

Bowles said very gently:

"As I said, that isn't important in the long run."

Barnes said, "Stow it, Red. Don't get downhearted, Doe-there is a good chance that some other station will beam us. Keep trying, Mannie."

"Will you guys please shut up?"

He did keep trying over and over again; in the intervals he listened, not only to the beam frequency'ofNAA, but all over the dial. --

More than eight hours later the last faint arc of Earth had vanished. No one had thought to eat and Traub had not left his post for any purpose. --

They went on preparing to leave, but their hearts were not in it. Corley stayed at his desk,' except for snatches of sleep, trying to make up by effort for the lack of fine tools. He set the departure ahead to, give him more time.

The aching, cloudless lunar day wore on and the sun sank to the west. They planned to risk it just at sundown. It was admitted by Corley-and by Barnes, who checked his figures-that the situation theoretically did not permit success. By the book, they would rise, curve around the Moon, and approach the border where the fields of Earth and Moon balance-but they would never reach it; they would fall back and crash.

It was also agreed, by everyone, that it was better to die trying than to wait for death. Bowles suggested that they wait a month until next sight of Earth, but arithmetic shut off that chance; they would not starve; they would not die of thirst-they would suffocate.

Bowles took it serenely; Traub lay in his bunk or moved like a zombie. Corley was a gray-faced automaton, buried in figures. Barnes became increasingly imtable. --

As a'sop to Corley, Bowles made desultory readings on the instruments Corley had not bad -- time to use. Among

the chores was developing the films taken on the flight across the back face. It had been agreed to keep them, they weighed ounces only, and it was desirable to develop them to prevent fogging by stray radioactivity. Barnes assigned Traub the task, to keep him busy.

Traub worked in the airlock, it being the only darkroom. Presently he came poking his head up through the hatch. "Mr. Barnes?"

"Yes, Mannie?" Barnes noted with satisfaction that Traub showed his first touch of animation since his

ordeal. --

"See what you make of this." Traub handed him a negative. Barnes spread it against a port. "See those little round things? What are they?"

"Craters, I guess."

"No, these are craters. See the difference?"

Barnes tried to visualize what the negative would look like in positive. "What do you think?"

"Well, they look like hemispheres. Odd formation, huh?"

Barnes looked again. "Too damned odd," he said slowly. "Mannie, let's have a 'punt."

"There's no print paper, is there?"

"You're right; my error."

Bowles joined them. "What's the curiosity? Moon maidens?"

Barnes showed him. "What do you make of those things?"

Bowles looked, and looked again. Finally he asked, "Mannie, how can we enlarge this?"

It took an hour to jury-rig a magic lantern, using a pilfered camera lens. They all gathered in the airlock and Traub switched on his improvised projector.

Bowles said, "Focus it, for cripes' sake." Traub did so. The images of his "hemispheres" were reasonably distinct. They were six in number, arranged in a semicircle -- and they were unnatural in appearance.

Barnes peered at them. "Red-you were a bit late when you claimed this planet."•

Bowles said, "Hmmm -- " Finally he emphatically added, "Constructions."

"Wait a minute," protested Corley. "They look artificial, but some very odd formations are natural."

"Look closer, Doe," Barnes advised. "There is no reasonable doubt. The question: were we a year or so late in claiming the Moon? Or millions of years?"

"Eh?"

"Those are pressure domes. Who built them? Moon people, long before history? Visiting Martians? Or Russians?"

Traub said, "Mr. Barnes-why not live Moon peo ple?"

"What? Take a walk outside."

"I don't see why not. As soon as I saw them I said, 'That's where those flying saucers came from a while back."

"Mannie, there were no flying saucers. Don't kid

yourself."

Traub said, doggedly, "I knew a man who -- "

" -- saw one with his own eyes," Barnes finished.

"Forget it. That's our worry-there. They're real. They show on l~tlm."

"Forget Martians, too," Bowles said gruffly, "and any long-dead Moon people."

"I take it you go for Russians?" Barnes commented. "I simply know that those films must be in the hands of military intelligence as soon as possible."

"Military intelligence? Ah, yes, on Earth-a lovely thought."

"Don~t he sarcastic. I mean it."