Arthur Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

It was hardly an accident that he was sitting next to Lawson when the order came to fasten seat belts for deceleration. With the fifteen other passengers, they sat in the tiny, blackedout lounge, hooking at the swiftly approaching Moon. Projected on a viewing screen from a lens in the outer hull, the image seemed sharper and more brilliant even than in real life. It was as if they were inside an old-fashioned camera obscura; the arrangement was much safer than having an actual observation window — a structural hazard that spaceship designers fought against tooth and nail.

That dramatically expanding landscape was a glorious and unforgettable sight, yet Spenser could give it only half his attention. He was watching the man beside him, his intense aquiline features barely visible in the reflected light from the screen.

“Isn't it somewhere down there”, he said, in his most casual tone of voice, “that the boatload of tourists has just been lost?”

“Yes”, said Tom, after a considerable delay.

“I don't know my way about the Moon. Any idea where they're supposed to be?”

Even the most uncooperative of men, Spenser had long ago discovered, could seldom resist giving information if you made it seem that they were doing you a favor, and gave them a chance of airing their superior knowledge. The trick worked in nine cases out of ten: it worked now with Tom Lawson.

“They're down there”, he said, pointing to the center of the screen. “Those are the Mountains of Inaccessibility; that's the Sea of Thirst all around them.”

Spenser stared, in entirely unsimulated awe, at the sharply etched blacks and whites of the mountains toward which they were falling. He hoped the pilot — human or electronic — knew his job; the ship seemed to be coming in very fast. Then he realized that they were drifting toward the flatter territory on the left of the picture; the mountains and the curious gray area surrounding them were sliding away from the center of the screen.

“Port Roris”, Tom volunteered unexpectedly, pointing to a barely visible black mark on the far left. “That's where we're landing.”

“Well! I'd hate to come down in those mountains”, said Spenser, determined to keep the conversation on target. “They'll never find the poor devils if they're lost in that wilderness. Anyway, aren't they supposed to be buried under an avalanche?”

Tom gave a superior laugh.

“They're supposed to be”, he said.

“Why — isn't that true?”

A little belatedly, Tom remembered his instructions.

“Can't tell you anything more”, he replied in that same smug, cocksure voice.

Spenser dropped the subject; he had already learned enough to convince him of one thing. Chavius City would have to wait; he had better hang on at Port Roris for a while.

He was even more certain of this when his envious eyes saw Dr. Tom Lawson cleared through Quarantine, Customs, Immigration, and Exchange Control in three minutes flat.

Had any eavesdropper been listening to the sounds inside Selene, he would have been very puzzled. The cabin was reverberating unmelodioushy to the sound of twenty-one voices, in almost as many keys, singing “Happy Birthday to You.”

When the din had subsided, Commodore Hansteen called out: “Anyone else besides Mrs. Williams who just remembered that it's his or her birthday? We know, of course, that some ladies like to keep it quiet when they reach a certain age —”

There were no volunteers, but Duncan McKenzie raised his voice above the general laughter.

“There's a funny thing about birthdays — I used to win bets at parties with it. Knowing that there are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, how large a group of people would you think was needed before you had a fifty-fifty chance that two of them shared the same birthday?”

After a brief pause, while the audience considered the question, someone answered: “Why, half of three hundred and sixty-five, I suppose. Say a hundred and eighty.”

“That's the obvious answer — and it's completely wrong. If you have a group of more than twenty-four people, the odds are better than even that two of them have the same birthday.”

“That's ridiculous! Twenty-four days out of three sixty-five can't give those odds.”

“Sorry — it does. And if there are more than forty people, nine times out of ten two of them will have the same birthday. There's a sporting chance that it might work with the twenty-two of us. What about trying it, Commodore?”

“Very well. I'll go round the room, and ask each one of you for his date of birth.”

“Oh no”, protested McKenzie. “People cheat if you do it that way. The dates must be written down, so that nobody knows anyone else's birthday.”

An almost blank page from one of the tourist guides was sacrificed for this purpose, and torn up into twenty-two slips. When they were collected and read, to everyone's astonishment — and McKenzie's gratification — it turned out that both Pat Harris and Robert Bryan had been born on May 23.

“Pure luck!” said a skeptic, thus igniting a brisk mathematical argument among half a dozen of the male passengers. The ladies were quite uninterested; either because they did not care for mathematics or because they preferred to ignore birthdays.

When the Commodore decided that this had gone on long enough, he rapped for attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called. “Let's get on with the next item on our program. I'm pleased to say that the Entertainment Committee, consisting of Mrs. Schuster and Professor Jaya — er, Professor J. — has come up with an idea that should give us some amusement. They suggest that we set up a court and cross-examine everybody here in turn. The object of the court is to find an answer to this question: Why did we come to the Moon in the first place? Of course, some people may not want to be examined — for all I know, half of you may be on the run from the police, or your wives. You're at liberty to refuse to give evidence, but don't blame us if we draw the worst possible conclusions if you do. Well, what do you think of the idea?”

It was received with fair enthusiasm in some quarters and ironic groans of disapproval in others, but since there was no determined opposition, the Commodore went ahead. Almost automatically, he was elected President of the Court; equally automatic was Irving Schuster's appointment as General Counsel.

The front-right pair of seats had been reversed so that it faced toward the rear of the cruiser. This served as the bench, shared by the President and Counsel. When everyone had settled down, and the Clerk of the Court (viz. Pat Harris) had called for order, the President made a brief address.

“We are not yet engaged in criminal proceedings”, he said, keeping his face straight with some difficulty. “This is purely a court of enquiry. If any witness feels that he is being intimidated by my learned colleague, he can appeal to the Court. Will the Clerk call the first witness?”

“Er — your Honor — who is the first witness?” said the Clerk, reasonably enough.

It took ten minutes of discussion among the Court, learned Counsel, and argumentative members of the public to settle this important point. Finally it was decided to have a ballot, and the first name to be produced was David Barrett's.

Smiling slightly, the witness came forward and took his stand in the narrow space before the bench.

Irving Schuster, looking and feeling none too legal in undershirt and underpants, cleared his throat impressively.

“Your name is David Barrett?”

“That is correct.”

“Your occupation?”

“Agricultural engineer, retired.”

“Mr. Barrett, will you tell this court exactly why you have come to the Moon.”