Arthur Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

Yes, there it was — Earth in the far infrared, a strange and at first glance baffling sight. For it was no longer a clean-cut, geometrically perfect crescent, but a ragged mushroom with its stem lying along the equator.

It took Tom a few seconds to interpret the picture. Both Poles had been chopped off. That was understandable, for they were too cold to be detected at this setting of the sensitivity. But why that bulge across the unilluminated night side of the planet? Then he realized that he was seeing the warm glow of the tropical oceans, radiating back into the darkness the heat that they had stored during the day. In the infrared, the equatorial night was more brilliant than the polar day.

It was a reminder of the fact, which no scientist should ever forget, that human senses perceived only a tiny, distorted picture of the Universe. Tom Lawson had never heard of Plato's analogy of the chained prisoners in the cave, watching shadows cast upon a wall and trying to deduce from them the realities of the external world. But here was a demonstration that Plato would have appreciated: Which Earth was “real”? The perfect crescent visible to the eye, the tattered mushroom glowing in the far infrared — or neither?

The office was small, even for Port Roris — which was purely a transit station between Earthside and Farside, and a jumping-off point for tourists to the Sea of Thirst. (Not that any looked like jumping off in that direction for some time.) The Port had had a brief moment of glory thirty years before, as the base used by one of the Moon's few successful criminals — Jerry Budker, who had made a small fortune dealing in fake pieces of Lunik II. He was hardly as exciting as Robin Hood or Billy the Kid, but he was the best that the Moon could offer.

Maurice Spenser was rather glad that Port Roris was such a quiet little one-dome town, though he suspected that it would not stay quiet much longer, especially when his colleagues at Clavius woke up to the fact that an I. N. Bureau Chief was lingering here unaccountably, and not hurrying southward to the lights of the big (pop. 52,647) city. A guarded cable to Earth had taken care of his superiors, who would trust his judgment and would guess the story he was after. Sooner or later, the competition would guess it, too — but by that time, he hoped to be well ahead.

The man he was conferring with was Auriga's still-disgruntled skipper, who had just spent a complicated and unsatisfactory hour on the telephone with his agents at Clavius, trying to arrange transshipment of his cargo. McIver, McDonald, Macarthy and McCulloch, Ltd. seemed to think it was his fault that Auriga had put down at Roris. In the end, he had hung up after telling them to sort it out with the head office. Since it was now early Sunday morning in Edinburgh, this should hold them for a while.

Captain Anson mellowed a little after the second whisky; a man who could find Johnnie Walker in Port Roris was worth knowing, and he asked Spenser how he had managed it.

“The power of the press”, said the other with a laugh. “A reporter never reveals his sources; if he did, he wouldn't stay in business for long.”

He opened his brief case, and pulled out a sheaf of maps and photos.

“I had an even bigger job getting these at such short notice — and I'd be obliged, Captain, if you would say nothing at all about this to anyone. It's extremely confidential, at least for the moment.”

“Of course. What's it about — Selene?”

“So you guessed that, too? You're right. It may come to nothing, but I want to be prepared.”

He spread one of the photos across the desk. It was a view of the Sea of Thirst, from the standard series issued by the Lunar Survey and taken from low-altitude reconnaissance satellites. Though this was an afternoon photograph, and the shadows thus pointed in the opposite direction, it was almost identical with the view Spenser had had just before landing. He had studied it so closely that he now knew it by heart.

“The Mountains of Inaccessibility”, he said. “They rise very steeply out of the Sea to an altitude of almost two thousand meters. That dark oval is Crater Lake —”

“Where Selene was lost?”

“Where she may be lost: there's now some doubt about that. Our sociable young friend from Lagrange has evidence that she's actually gone down in the Sea of Thirst — round about this area. In that case, the people inside her may be alive. And in that case, Captain, there's going to be one hell of a salvage operation only a hundred kilometers from here. Port Roris will be the biggest new center in the solar system.”

“Phew! So that's your game. But where do I come in?”

Once again Spenser placed his finger on the map.

“Right here, Captain. I want to charter your ship. And I want you to land me, with a cameraman and two hundred kilos of TV equipment, on the western wall of the Mountains of Inaccessibility.”

“I have no further questions, your Honor”, said Counsel Schuster, sitting down abruptly.

“Very well”, replied Commodore Hansteen. “I must order the witness not to leave the jurisdiction of the Court.”

Amid general laughter, David Barrett returned to his seat. He had put on a good perfonnance; though most of his replies had been serious and thoughtful, they had been enlivened with flashes of humor and had kept the audience continuously interested. If all the other witnesses were equally forthcoming, that would solve the problem of entertainment, for as long as it had to be solved. Even if they used up all the memories of four lifetimes in every day — a complete impossibility, of course — someone would still be talking when the oxygen container gave its last gasp.

Hansteen looked at his watch. There was still an hour to go before their frugal lunch. They could revert to Shane, or start (despite Miss Morley's objections) on that preposterous historical novel. But it seemed a pity to break off now, while everyone was in a receptive mood.

“If you all feel the same way about it”, said the Commodore, “I'll call another witness.”

“I'll second that” was the quick reply from Barrett, who now considered himself safe from further inquisition. Even the poker players were in favor, so the Clerk of the Court pulled another name out of the coffeepot in which the ballot papers had been mixed.

He looked at it with some surprise, and hesitated before reading it out.

“What's the matter?” said the Court. “Is it your name?”

“Er — no”, replied the Clerk, glancing at learned Counsel with a mischievous grin. He cleared his throat and called: “Mrs. Myra Schuster!”

“Your Honor — I object!” Mrs. Schuster rose slowly, a formidable figure even though she had lost a kilogram or two since leaving Port Roris. She pointed to her husband, who looked embarrassed and tried to hide behind his notes. “Is it fair for him to ask me questions?”

“I'm willing to stand down”, said Irving Schuster, even before the Court could say “objection sustained.”

“I am prepared to take over the examination”, said the Commodore, though his expression rather belied this. “But is there anyone else who feels qualified to do so?”

There was a short silence; then, to Hansteen's surprised relief, one of the poker players stood up.

“Though I'm not a lawyer, your Honor, I have some slight legal experience. I'm willing to assist.”

“Very good, Mr. Harding. Your witness.”

Harding took Schuster's place at the front of the cabin, and surveyed his captive audience. He was a well-built, tough-looking man who somehow did not fit his own description, that he was a bank executive. Hansteen had wondered, fleetingly, if this was the truth.

“Your name is Myra Schuster?”

“Yes.”