Arthur Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

“But that's ridiculous. We should be all right for another three days — unless something has gone wrong with the air purifiers.”

“I'm afraid it has. What system do we use to get rid of the carbon dioxide?”

“Straight chemical absorption. It's a very simple, reliable setup; we've never had any trouble with it before.”

“Yes, but it's never had to work under these conditions before. I think the heat may have knocked out the chemicals. Is there any way we can check them?”

Pat shook his head.

“No. The access hatch is on the outside of the hull.”

“Sue, my dear”, said a tired voice which they hardly recognized as belonging to Mrs. Schuster, “do you have anything to fix a headache?”

“If you do”, said another passenger, “I'd like some as well.”

Pat and the Commodore looked at each other gravely. The classic symptoms were developing with textbook precision.

“How long would you guess?” said Pat quietly.

“Two or three hours at the most. And it will be at least six before Lawrence and his men can get here.”

It was then that Pat knew, without any further argument, that he was genuinely in love with Sue. For his first reaction was not fear for his own safety, but anger and grief that, after having endured so much, she would have to die within sight of rescue.

When Tom Lawson woke up in that strange hotel room, he was not even sure who he was, still less where he was. The fact that he had some weight was his first reminder that he was no longer on Lagrange — but he was not heavy enough for Earth. Then it was not a dream; he was on the Moon, and he really had been out into that deadly Sea of Thirst.

And he had helped to find Selene; twenty-two men and women now had a chance of life, thanks to his skill and science. After all the disappointments and frustrations, his adolescent dreams of glory were about to come true. Now the world would have to make amends to him for its indifference and neglect.

The fact that society had provided him with an education which, a century earlier, only a few men could afford did nothing to alleviate Tom's grudge against it. Such treatment was automatic in this age, when every child was educated to the level that his intelligence and aptitudes permitted. Now that civilization needed all the talent that it could find, merely to maintain itself, any other educational policy would have been suicide. Tom gave no thanks to society for providing the environment in which he had obtained his doctor's degree; it had acted in its own self-interest.

Yet this morning he did not feel quite so bitter about life or so cynical about human beings. Success and recognition are great emollients, and he was on his way to achieving both. But there was more to it than that; he had glimpsed a deeper satisfaction. Out there on Duster Two, when his fears and uncertainties had been about to overwhelm him, he had made contact with another human being, and had worked in successful partnership with a man whose skill and courage he could respect.

It was only a tenuous contact, and, like others in the past, it might lead nowhere. A part of his mind, indeed, hoped that it would, so that he could once again assure himself that all men were selfish, sadistic scoundrels. Tom could no more escape from his early boyhood than Charles Dickens, for all his success and fame, could escape the shadows of the blacking factory that had both metaphorically and literally darkened his youth. But he had made a fresh beginning — though he still had very far to go before he became a fully paid-up member of the human race.

When he had showered and tidied himself, he noticed the message that Spenser had left lying on the table. “Make yourself at home”, it said. “I've had to leave in a hurry. Mike Graham is taking over from me — call him at 3443 as soon as you're awake.”

I'm hardly likely to call him before I'm awake, thought Tom, whose excessively logical mind loved to seize on such looseness of speech. But he obeyed Spenser's request, heroically resisting the impulse to order breakfast first.

When he got through to Mike Graham, he discovered that he had slept through a very hectic six hours in the history of Port Roris, that Spenser had taken off in Auriga for the Sea of Thirst — and that the town was full of newsmen from all over the Moon, most of them looking for Dr. Lawson.

“Stay right where you are”, said Graham, whose name and voice were both vaguely familiar to Tom; he must have seen him on those rare occasions when he tuned in to lunar telecasts. “I'll be over in five minutes.”

“I'm starving”, protested Tom.

“Call room service and order anything you like — it's on us, of course — but don't go outside the suite.”

Tom did not resent being pushed around in this somewhat cavalier fashion; it meant, after all, that he was now an important piece of property. He was much more annoyed by the fact that, as anyone in Port Roris could have told him, Mike Graham arrived long before room service. It was a hungry astronomer who now faced Mike's miniature telecamera and tried to explain, for the benefit of — as yet — only two hundred million viewers, exactly how he had been able to locate Selene.

Thanks to the transformation wrought by hunger and his recent experiences, he made a first-class job of it. A few days ago, had any TV reporter managed to drag Lawson in front of a camera to explain the technique of infrared detection, he would have been swiftly and contemptuously blinded by science. Tom would have given a no-holds-barred lecture full of such terms as quantum efficiency, black-body radiation, and spectral sensitivity that would have convinced his audience that the subject was extremely complex (which was true enough) and wholly impossible for the layman to understand (which was quite false).

But now he carefully and fairly patiently — despite the occasional urgent proddings of his stomach — answered Mike Graham's questions in terms that most of his viewers could understand. To the large section of the astronomical community which Tom had scarred at some time or other, it was a revelation. Up in Lagrange II, Professor Kotelnikov summarized the feelings of all his colleagues when, at the end of the performance, he paid Tom the ultimate compliment. “Quite frankly”, he said in tones of incredulous disbelief, “I would never have recognized him.”

It was something of a feat to have squeezed seven men into Selene's air lock, but — as Pat had demonstrated — it was the only place where one could hold a private conference. The other passengers doubtless wondered what was happening; they would soon know.

When Hansteen had finished, his listeners looked understandably worried, but not particularly surprised. They were intelligent men, and must have already guessed the truth.

“I'm telling you first”, explained the Commodore, “because Captain Harris and I decided you were all levelheaded — and tough enough to give us help if we need it. I hope to God we won't, but there may be trouble when I make my announcement.”

“And if there is?” said Harding.

“If anyone makes a fuss, jump on them”, answered the Commodore briefly. “But be as casual as you can when we go back into the cabin. Don't look as if you're expecting a fight; that's the best way to start one. Your job is to damp out panic before it spreads.”

“Do you think it's fair”, said Dr. McKenzie, “not to give an opportunity to — well, send out some last messages?”

“We thought of that, but it would take a long time and would make everyone completely depressed. We want to get this through as quickly as possible. The sooner we act, the better our chance.”

“Do you really think we have one?” asked Barrett.