Arthur Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

“This is very interesting, Doctor Lawson”, he said at last. “It's a great pity, though, that you didn't continue your observations when you took the first photos. Then we might have had something more conclusive.”

Tom bridled instantly at this criticism, despite — or perhaps because of — the fact that it was well-founded.

“If you think that anyone else could have done better —” he snapped.

“Oh, I'm not suggesting that”, said Lawrence, anxious to keep the peace. “But where do we go from here? The spot you indicate may be fairly small, but its position is uncertain by at least half a kilometer. There may be nothing visible on the surface, even in daylight. Is there any way we can pinpoint it more accurately?”

“There's one very obvious method. Use this same technique at ground level. Go over the area with an infrared scanner. That will locate any hot spot, even if it's only a fraction of a degree warmer than its surroundings.”

“A good idea”, said Lawrence. “I'll see what can be arranged, and will call you back if I need any further information. Thank you very much — Doctor.”

He hung up quickly, and wiped his brow. Then he immediately put through another call to the satellite.

“Lagrange II? Chief Engineer, Earthside, here. Give me the Director, please… Professor Kotelnikov? This is Lawrence… I'm fine, thanks. I've been talking to your Doctor Lawson… No, he hasn't done anything, except nearly make me lose my temper. He's been looking for our missing dust-cruiser, and he thinks he's found her. What I'd like to know is — how competent is he?”

In the next five minutes, the Chief Engineer learned a good deal about young Dr. Lawson; rather more, in fact, than he had any right to know, even over a confidential circuit. When Professor Kotelnikov had paused for breath, he interjected sympathetically: “I can understand why you put up with him. Poor kid — I thought orphanages hike that went out with Dickens and the twentieth century. A good thing it did burn down. Do you suppose he set fire to it? No, don't answer that — you've told me he's a first-class observer, and that's all I want to know. Thanks a lot. See you down here someday?”

In the next half-hour, Lawrence made a dozen calls to points all over the Moon. At the end of that time, he had accumulated a large amount of information; now he had to act on it.

At Plato Observatory, Father Ferraro thought the idea was perfectly plausible. In fact, he had already suspected that the focus of the quake was under the Sea of Thirst rather than the Mountains of Inaccessibility, but couldn't prove it because the Sea had such a damping effect on all vibrations. No, a complete set of soundings had never been made; it would be very tedious and time consuming. He'd probed it himself in a few places with telescopic rods, and had always hit bottom at less than forty meters. His guess for the average depth was under ten meters, and it was much shallower round the edges. No, he didn't have an infrared detector, but the astronomers on Farside might be able to help.

Sorry, no I. R. detector at Dostoevski. Our work is all in the ultraviolet. Try Verne.

Oh yes, we used to do some work in the infrared, a couple of years back — taking spectrograms of giant red stars. But do you know what? There were enough traces of lunar atmosphere to interfere with the readings, so the whole program was shifted out into space. Try Lagrange.

It was at this point that Lawrence called Traffic Control for the shipping schedules from Earth, and found that he was in luck. But the next move would cost a lot of money, and only the Chief Administrator could authorize it.

That was one good thing about Olsen; he never argued with his technical staff over matters that were in their province. He listened carefully to Lawrence's story, and went straight to the main point.

“If this theory is true”, he said, “there's a chance that they may still be alive, after all.”

“More than a chance; I'd say it's quite likely. We know the Sea is shallow, so they can't be very deep. The pressure on the hull would be fairly low; it may still be intact.”

“So you want this fellow Lawson to help with the search.” The Chief Engineer gave a gesture of resignation. “He's about the last person I want”, he answered. “But I'm afraid we've got to have him.”

The skipper of the cargo liner Auriga was furious, and so was his crew — but there was nothing they could do about it. Ten hours out from Earth and five hours from the Moon they were ordered to stop at Lagrange, with all the waste of speed and extra computing that implied. And to make matters worse, they were being diverted from Chavius City to that miserable dump Port Roris, practically on the other side of the Moon. The ether crackled with messages canceling dinners and assignations all over the southern hemisphere.

Not far from full, the mottled silver disc of the Moon, its eastern limb wrinkled with easily visible mountains, formed a dazzling background to Lagrange II as Auriga came to rest a hundred kilometers earthward of the station. She was allowed no closer; the interference produced by her equipment, and the glare of her jets, had already affected the sensitive recording instruments on the satellite. Only old-fashioned chemical rockets were permitted to operate in the immediate neighborhood of Lagrange; plasma drives and fusion plants were strictly taboo.

Carrying one small case full of clothing, and one large case full of equipment, Tom Lawson entered the liner twenty minutes after his departure from Lagrange. The shuttle pilot had refused to hurry, despite urgings from Auriga. The new passenger was greeted without warmth as he came aboard; he would have been received quite differently had anyone known his mission. The Chief Administrator, however, had ruled that it should be kept secret for the present; he did not wish to raise false hopes among the relatives of the lost passengers. The Tourist Commissioner had wanted an immediate release, maintaining that it would prove that they were doing their best, but Olsen had said firmly: “Wait until he produces results. Then you can give something to your friends in the news agencies.”

The order was already too late. Aboard Auriga, Maurice Spenser, Bureau Chief of Interphanet News, was on his way to take up his duties in Clavius City. He was not sure if this was a promotion or demotion from Peking, but it would certainly be a change.

Unlike all the other passengers, he was not in the least annoyed by the change of course. The delay was on the firm's time, and, as an old newsman, he always welcomed the unusual, the break in the established routine. It was certainly odd for a Moon-bound liner to waste several hours and an unimaginable amount of energy to stop at Lagrange, just to pick up a dour-faced young man with a couple of pieces of baggage. And why the diversion from Clavius to Port Roris? “Top-level instructions from Earth”, said the skipper, and seemed to be telling the truth when he disowned all further knowledge. It was a mystery, and mysteries were Spenser's business. He made one shrewd guess at the reason, and was right — or almost right — the first time.

It must have something to do with that lost dust-cruiser there had been such a fuss about just before he left Earth. This scientist from Lagrange must have some information about her, or must be able to assist in the search. But why the secrecy? Perhaps there was some scandal or mistake that the Lunar Administration was trying to hush up. The simple and wholly creditable reason never occurred to Spenser.

He avoided speaking to Lawson during the remainder of the brief trip, and was amused to note that the few passengers who tried to strike up a conversation were quickly rebuffed. Spenser bided his time, and that time came thirty minutes before landing.