Arthur Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

“How did he ever get through Quarantine?”

“Oh, there's a special section for people like this. The doctors don't talk about it, but the customers get temporary deconditioning under hypnosis. There are more of them than you might think; a trip to the Moon's highly recommended as part of the cure. It gets you away from your original environment.”

There were quite a few other questions that Pat would have liked to ask Harding, but they had already wasted several minutes. Thank heavens all the remaining passengers had gone under. That last demonstration of judo, or whatever it was, must have encouraged any stragglers.

“You won't need me any more”, said Sue, with a small, brave smile. “Goodby, Pat — wake me when it's over.”

“I will”, he promised, lowering her gently into the space between the seat rows. “Or not at all”, he added, when he saw that her eyes were closed.

He remained bending over her for several seconds before he regained enough control to face the others. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but now the opportunity was gone, perhaps forever.

Swallowing to overcome the dryness in his throat, he turned to the five survivors. There was still one more problem to deal with, and David Barrett summed it up for him.

“Well, Captain”, he said. “Don't leave us in suspense. Which of us do you want to keep you company?”

One by one, Pat handed over five of the sleep tubes.

“Thank you for your help”, he said. “I know this is a little melodramatic, but it's the neatest way. Only four of those will work.”

“I hope mine will”, said Barrett, wasting no time. It did. A few seconds later, Harding, Bryan, and Johanson followed the Englishman into oblivion.

“Well”, said Dr. McKenzie, “I seem to be odd man out. I'm flattered by your choice — or did you leave it to luck?”

“Before I answer that question”, replied Pat, “I'd better let Port Roris know what's happened.”

He walked to the radio and gave a brief survey of the situation. There was a shocked silence from the other end. A few minutes later, Chief Engineer Lawrence was on the line.

“You did the best thing, of course”, he said, when Pat had repeated his story in more detail. “Even if we hit no snags, we can't possibly reach you in under five hours. Will you be able to hold out until then?”

“The two of us, yes”, answered Pat. “We can take turns using the space-suit breathing circuit. It's the passengers I'm worried about.”

“The only thing you can do is to check their respiration, and give them a blast of oxygen if they seem distressed. We'll do our damnedest from this end. Anything more you want to say?”

Pat thought for a few seconds.

“No”, he said, a little wearily. “I'll call you again on each quarter-hour. Selene out.”

He got to his feet — slowly, for the strain and the carbon-dioxide poisoning were now beginning to tell heavily upon him — and said to McKenzie: “Right, Doc — give me a hand with that space suit.”

“I'm ashamed of myself. I'd forgotten all about that.”

“And I was worried because some of the other passengers might have remembered. They must all have seen it, when they came in through the air lock. It just goes to prove how you can overlook the obvious.”

It took them only five minutes to detach the absorbent canisters and the twenty-four-hour oxygen supply from the suit; the whole breathing circuit had been designed for quick release, in case it was ever needed for artificial respiration. Not for the first time, Pat blessed the skill, ingenuity, and foresight that had been lavished on Selene. There were some things that had been overlooked, or that might have been done a little better — but not many.

Their lungs aching, the only two men still conscious aboard the cruiser stood staring at each other across the gray metal cylinder that held another day of life. Then, simultaneously, each said: “You go first.”

They laughed without much humor at the hackneyed situation, then Pat answered, “I won't argue” and placed the mask over his face.

Like a cool sea breeze after a dusty summer day, like a wind from the mountain pine forests stirring the stagnant air in some deep lowlands valley — so the flow of oxygen seemed to Pat. He took four slow, deep breaths, and exhaled to the fullest extent, to sweep the carbon dioxide out of his lungs. Then, like a pipe of peace, he handed the breathing kit over to McKenzie.

Those four breaths had been enough to invigorate him, and to sweep away the cobwebs that had been gathering in his brain. Perhaps it was partly psychological — could a few cubic centimeters of oxygen have had so profound an effect? — but whatever the explanation, he felt like a new man. Now he could face the five — or more — hours of waiting that lay ahead.

Ten minutes later, he felt another surge of confidence. All the passengers seemed to be breathing as normally as could be expected — very slowly, but steadily. He gave each one a few seconds of oxygen, then called Base again.

“Selene here”, he said. “Captain Harris reporting. Doctor McKenzie and I both feel quite fit now, and none of the passengers seem distressed. I'll remain listening out, and will call you again on the half-hour.”

“Message received. But hold on a minute, several of the news agencies want to speak to you.”

“Sorry”, Pat answered. “I've given all the information there is, and I've twenty unconscious men and women to look after. Selene out.”

That was only an excuse, of course, and a feeble one at that; he was not even sure why he had made it. He felt, in a sudden and uncharacteristic burst of rancor: Why, a man can't even die in peace nowadays! Had he known about that waiting camera, only five kilometers away, his reaction might have been even stronger.

“You still haven't answered my question, Captain”, said Dr. McKenzie patiently.

“What question? Oh — that. No, it wasn't luck. The Commodore and I both thought you'd be the most useful man to have awake. You're a scientist, you spotted the overheating danger before anyone else did, and you kept quiet about it when we asked you to.”

“Well, I'll try to live up to your expectations. I certainly feel more alert than I've done for hours. It must be the oxygen we're sniffing. The big question is: How long will it last?”

“Between the two of us, twelve hours. Plenty of time for the skis to get here. But we may have to give most of it to the others, if they show signs of distress. I'm afraid it's going to be a very close thing.”

They were both sitting cross-legged on the floor, just beside the pilot's position, with the oxygen bottle between them. Every few minutes they would take turns with the inhaler — but only two breaths at a time. I never imagined, Pat told himself, that I should ever get involved in the number-one cliché of the TV space operas. But it had occurred in real life too often to be funny any more — especially when it was happening to you.

Both Pat and McKenzie — or almost certainly one of them — could survive if they abandoned the other passengers to their fate. Trying to keep these twenty men and women alive, they might also doom themselves.

The situation was one in which logic warred against conscience. But it was nothing new; certainly it was not peculiar to the age of space. It was as old as Mankind, for countless times in the past, lost or isolated groups had faced death through lack of water, food, or warmth. Now it was oxygen that was in short supply, but the principle was just the same.

Some of those groups had left no survivors; others, a handful who would spend the rest of their lives in self-justification. What must George Pollard, late captain of the whaler Essex, have thought as he walked the streets of Nantucket, with the taint of cannibalism upon his soul? That was a two-hundred-year-old story of which Pat had never heard; he lived on a world too busy making its own legends to import those of Earth. As far as he was concerned, he had already made his choice, and he knew, without asking, that McKenzie would agree with him. Neither was the sort of man who would fight over the last bubble of oxygen in the tank. But if it did come to a fight…