The Moon, thought Jules, certainly presented some headaches to the cameraman. Everything was soot or whitewash; there were no nice, soft half tones. And, of course, there was that eternal dilemma of the stars, though that was an aesthetic problem, rather than a technical one.
The public expected to see stars in the lunar sky even during the daytime, because they were there. But the fact was that the human eye could not normally see them; during the day, the eye was so desensitized by the glare that the sky appeared an empty, absolute black. If you wanted to see the stars, you had to look for them through blinkers that cut off all other light; then your pupils would slowly expand, and one by one the stars would come out until they filled the field of view. But as soon as you looked at anything else phut, out they went. The human eye could look at the daylight stars, or the daylight landscape; it could never see both at once.
But the TV camera could, if desired, and some directors preferred it to do so. Others argued that this falsified reality. It was one of those problems that had no correct answer. Jules sided with the realists, and kept the star gate circuit switched off unless the studio asked for it.
At any moment, he would have some action for Earth. Already the news networks had taken flashes general views of the mountains, slow pans across the Sea, close-ups of that lonely marker sticking through the dust. But before long, and perhaps for hours on end, his camera might well be the eyes of several billion people. This feature was either going to be a bust, or the biggest story of the year.
He fingered the talisman in his pocket. Jules Braques, Member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, would have been displeased had anyone accused him of carrying a lucky charm. On the other hand, he would have been very hard put to explain why he never brought out his little toy until the story he was covering was safely on the air.
Here they are! yelled Spenser, his voice revealing the strain under which he had been laboring. He lowered his binoculars and glanced at the camera. You're too far off to the right!
Jules was already panning. On the monitor screen, the geometrical smoothness of the far horizon had been broken at last; two tiny, twinkling stars had appeared on that perfect arc dividing Sea and space. The dust-skis were coming up over the face of the Moon.
Even with the longest focus of the zoom lens, they looked small and distant. That was the way Jules wanted it; he was anxious to give the impression of loneliness, emptiness. He shot a quick glance at the ship's main screen, now tuned to the Interplanet channel. Yes, they were carrying him.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small diary, and laid it on top of the camera. He lifted the cover, which locked into position just short of the vertical and immediately became alive with color and movement. At the same time a faint gnat-sized voice started to tell him that this was a special program of the Interplanet News Service, Channel One Oh Seven and We Will Now Be Taking You Over to the Moon.
On the tiny screen was the picture he was seeing directly on his monitor. No not quite the same picture. This was the one he had captured two and a half seconds ago; he was looking that far into the past. In those two and a halt million microseconds to change to the time scale of the electronic engineer this scene had undergone many adventures and transformations. From his camera it had been piped to Auriga's transmitter, and beamed straight up to Lagrange, fifty thousand kilometers overhead. There it had been snatched out of space, boosted a few hundred times, and sped Earthward to be caught by one or another of the satellite relays. Then down through the ionosphere that last hundred kilometers the hardest of all to the Interplanet Building, where its adventures really began, as it joined the ceaseless flood of sounds and sights and electrical impulses which informed and amused a substantial fraction of the human race.
And here it was again, after passing through the hands of program directors and special-effects departments and engineering assistants right back where it started, broadcast over the whole of Earthside from the high-power transmitter on Lagrange II, and over the whole of Farside from Lagrange I. To span the single hand's breadth from Jules's TV camera to his pocket-diary receiver, that image had traveled three quarters of a million kilometers.
He wondered if it was worth the trouble. Men had been wondering that ever since television was invented.
CHAPTER 21
Lawrence spotted Auriga while he was still fifteen kilometers away; he could scarcely have failed to do so, for she was a conspicuous object, as the sunlight glistened from her plastic and metal.
What the devil's that? he asked himself, and answered the question at once. It was obviously a ship, and he remembered hearing vague rumors that some news network had chartered a flight to the mountains. That was not his business, though at one time he himself had looked into the question of landing equipment there, to cut out this tedious haul across the Sea. Unfortunately, the plan wouldn't work. There was no safe landing point within five hundred meters of Sea level; the ledge that had been so convenient for Spenser was at too great an altitude to be of use.
The Chief Engineer was not sure that he liked the idea of having his every move watched by long-focus lenses up in the hills not that there was anything he could do about it. He had already vetoed an attempt to put a camera on his ski to the enormous relief, though Lawrence did not know it, of Interplanet News, and the extreme frustration of the other services. Then he realized that it might well be useful having a ship only a few kilometers away. It would provide an additional information channel, and perhaps they could utilize its services in some other way. It might even provide hospitality until the igloos could be ferried out.
Where was the marker? Surely it should be in sight by now! For an uncomfortable moment Lawrence thought that it had fallen down and disappeared into the dust. That would not stop them finding Selene, of course, but it might delay them five or ten minutes at a time when every second was vital.
He breathed a sigh of relief; he had overlooked the thin shaft against the blazing background of the mountains. His pilot had already spotted their goal and had changed course slightly to head toward it.
The skis coasted to a halt on either side of the marker, and at once erupted into activity. Eight space-suited figures started unshipping roped bundles and large cylindrical drums at a great speed, according to the prearranged plan. Swiftly, the raft began to take shape as its slotted metal framework was bolted into position round the drums, and the light Fiberglas flooring was laid across it.
No construction job in the whole history of the Moon had ever been carried out in such a blaze of publicity, thanks to the watchful eye in the mountains. But once they had started work, the eight men on the skis were totally unconscious of the millions looking over their shoulders. All that mattered to them now was getting that raft in position, and fixing the jigs which would guide the hollow, life-bearing drills down to their target.
Every five minutes, or less, Lawrence spoke to Selene, keeping Pat and McKenzie informed of progress. The fact that he was also informing the anxiously waiting world scarcely crossed his mind.
At last, in an incredible twenty minutes, the drill was ready, its first five-meter section poised like a harpoon ready to plunge into the Sea. But this harpoon was designed to bring life, not death.
We're coming down, said Lawrence. The first section's going in now.
You'd better hurry, whispered Pat. I can't hold out much longer.
He seemed to be moving in a fog; he could not remember a time when it was not there. Apart from the dull ache in his lungs, he was not really uncomfortable merely incredibly, unbelievably tired. He was now no more than a robot, going about a task whose meaning he had long ago forgotten, if indeed he had ever known it. There was a wrench in his hand; he had taken it out of the tool kit hours ago, knowing that it would be needed. Perhaps it would remind him of what he had to do when the time came.