Stanislaw Lem: The Test

His fingers relaxed their grip, and the control stick slid back on its own. He saw nothing, heard nothing. By degrees the darkness began to lift, turned grayer, and breathing became easier. He tried opening his eyes, only to discover that they had been open the whole time—his eyelids were completely dried out.

He sat up.

The gravimeter showed 2g ; the forward screen—nothing but a star-infested void. Not a sign of the Moon. What had happened to it?

It was there, all right—below him. He had pulled out of his lethal nose dive and was now cruising up and away with a diminishing escape velocity. How close had he shaved it? he wondered. The altimeter must have recorded the exact amount of clearance, but somehow he was not in the mood for taking a readout. Suddenly the alarm signal stopped. My Gawd, it had been on the whole time! A big help that was! Why not hang a church bell from the ceiling?! If you’re headed for the cemetery, then at least let a guy go out in style! There was another buzzing noise, this time very faint. The other fly! It was alive, the bastard! Alive and buzzing the blister’s ceiling. Suddenly he had an awful taste in his mouth, a taste similar to that of coarse canvas… The safety belt. He had been munching on it absentmindedly the whole time.

He fastened the safety belt and grabbed hold of the controls; he still had to steer the ship back onto the assigned orbit. The two JO ships were nowhere in sight, which came as no surprise. Even so, he had to complete the mission and report to Luna Navigation. Or should he report first to Luna Base—because of the malfunction? Damned if he knew! Or maybe he should just keep quiet. No way! The moment he touched down they would spot the blood—which, as he now noticed for the first time, was splattered all over the ceiling. Besides, the on-board flight recorder would have the whole story on tape—the way the circuit breaker went berserk, the malfunction in the emergency lever… Boy, a swell piece of machinery these sports give us! They might as well send us up in a coffin!

Okay, so he’d report it. But where? Then he had a brainstorm. He leaned forward, loosened his shoulder strap, and groped under the seat for the cribsheet. Why the hell not? Now’s when it could really come in handy.

At that instant he heard something creak behind him—as if a door were being opened.

A door? Behind him? He knew perfectly well there was no door behind him. But even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have turned around because of the straps. A streak of light fell across the screens, wiping out the stars still visible on them, and the next thing he heard was the CO’s soft and subdued voice:

“Cadet Pirx.”

He made an attempt to get up, was restrained by the straps, and fell back against the seat, convinced that he was hallucinating. Out of nowhere, the CO suddenly appeared in the passage separating the glass shell from the rest of the cabin. He stood before him in his gray uniform, fixed him with his gentle gray eyes, and smiled. Pirx was altogether confused.

The moment the glass bubble went up, Pirx automatically started undoing his straps, then rose to his feet. The video screens in back of the CO went blank.

“A good performance, Pirx,” said the CO. “ Quite good.”

Pirx was still dumbfounded. Then, as he was standing at attention in front of the CO, he did something that was strictly against the rules: he turned his head around, twisting it as far as his partially inflated neck collar would let him.

To his amazement, the entire access tunnel had been dismantled, hatchway and all, making it look as if the rocket ship had split in half. In the evening light he made out the catwalk, where a group of people was now standing—the cable railings, the ceiling girders… Pirx stared at the CO with a gaping mouth.

“Come along, son,” said the CO, who reached out and shook Pirx’s hand firmly. “On behalf of Flight Command, I commend you—and… offer you my personal apology. Yes, it’s… only right. Now, come along. You can clean up at my place.”

He started for the exit, with Pirx trailing in his footsteps, still a little stiff and wobbly on his feet. It was chilly outside, a breeze was blowing through the sliding panel in the ceiling.

Both ships were parked in the exact same place as before. Attached to the nose of each were several long and thick cables, droopingly suspended in space. They had not been there before.

His instructor, who was among those waiting on the catwalk, made a remark, which Pirx had trouble hearing through his helmet.

“What?” he instinctively blurted out.

“The air! Let the air out of your suit!”

“Oh, the air…”

He pressed the valve, and the air made a hissing sound as it was released. From where he stood on the catwalk, he could make out the two men in white smocks waiting behind the railing. His rocket ship looked as if it had a fractured beak. At first he felt only a strange apathy, which turned to amazement, then disillusionment, and finally anger—pure and unmitigated anger.

They were opening the hatch of the other ship. The CO was standing on the catwalk, listening to something the men in white smocks were telling him.

A faint banging noise could be heard coming from inside.

Then, from out of the cabin staggered a writhing hulk of a man in a brown uniform, his helmetless head bobbing around like a blurry blotch, his face contorted in a mute shriek…

Pirx’s knees buckled.

It was… Boerst.

He had crashed into the Moon.