It was not a bad landing, all things considered. He had to land without coaching from the ground, and he had no second pilot to watch the radar for him. In his anxiety to make it gentle he missed his destination by some thirty miles, but he did his cold-sober best. But at that it was bumpy. As they grounded and the pumice dust settled around them, Charlie came up to the control station.
"How's our passenger?" Mac demanded.
"I'll see, but I wouldn't make any bets. That landing stunk, Mac."
"Damn it, I did my best."
"I know you did, Skipper. Forget it."
But the passenger was alive and conscious although bleeding from the nose and with a pink foam on his lips. He was feebly trying to get himself out of his cocoon. They helped him, working together.
"Where are the vacuum suits?" was his first remark.
"Steady, Mr. Harriman. You can't go out there yet. We've got to give you some first aid."
"_Get me that suit!_ First aid can wait."
Silently they did as he ordered. His left leg was practically useless, and they had to help him through the lock, one on each side. But with his inconsiderable mass having a lunar weight of only twenty pounds, he was no burden.. They found a place some fifty yards from the ship where they could prop him up and let him look, a chunk of scoria supporting his head.
Mcintyre put his helmet against the old man's and spoke. "We'll leave you here to enjoy the view while we get ready for the trek into town. It's a forty-miler, pretty near, and we'll have to break out spare air bottles and rations and stuff. We'll be back soon."
Harriman nodded without answering, and squeezed their gauntlets with a grip that was surprisingly strong.
He sat very quietly, rubbing his hands against the soil of the Moon and sensing the curiously light pressure of his body against the ground. At long last there was peace in his heart. His hurts had ceased to pain him. He was where he had longed to be -- he had followed his need.
Over the western horizon hung the Earth at last quarter, a green-blue giant moon. Overhead the Sun shone down from a black and starry sky. And underneath the Moon, the soil of the Moon itself. He was on the Moon!
He lay back still while a bath of content flowed over him like a tide at flood, and soaked to his very marrow.
His attention strayed momentarily, and he thought once again that his name was called. Silly, he thought, I'm getting old -- my mind wanders.
Back in the cabin Charlie and Mac were rigging shoulder yokes on a stretcher. "There. That will do," Mac commented. "We'd better stir Pop out; we ought to be going."
"I'll get him," Charlie replied. "I'll just pick him up and carry him. He don't weigh nothing."
Charlie was gone longer than Mcintyre had expected him to be. He returned alone. Mac waited for him to close the lock, and swing back his helmet. "Trouble?"
"Never mind the stretcher, Skipper. We won't be needin' it.
"Yeah, I mean it," he continued. "Pop's done for. I did what was necessary."
Mcintyre bent down without a word and picked up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash. Charlie followed his example. Then they swung the spare air bottles over their shoulders, and passed out through the lock.
They didn't bother to close the outer door of the lock behind them.
The Long Watch
"Nine ships blasted off from Moon Base. Once in space, eight of them formed a globe around the smallest. They held this formation all the way to Earth.
"The small ship displayed the insignia of an admiral-yet there was no living thing of any sort in her. She was not even a passenger ship, but a drone, a robot ship intended for radioactive cargo. This trip she carried nothing but a lead coffin - and a Geiger counter that was never quiet." -from the editorial After Ten Years, film 38, 17 June 2009, Archives of the N.Y. Times
JOHNNY DAHLQUIST blew smoke at the Geiger counter. He grinned wryly and tried it again. His whole body was radioactive by now. Even his breath, the smoke from his cigarette, could make the Geiger counter scream. How long had he been here? Time doesn't mean much on the Moon. Two days? Three? A week? He let his mind run back: the last clearly marked time in his mind was when the Executive Officer had sent for him, right after breakfast - "Lieutenant Dahlquist, reporting to the Executive Officer."
Colonel Towers looked up. "Ah, John Ezra. Sit down, Johnny. Cigarette?"
Johnny sat down, mystified but flattered. He admired Colonel Towers, for his brilliance, his ability to dominate, and for his battle record. Johnny had no battle record; he had been commissioned on completing his doctor's degree in nuclear physics and was now junior bomb officer of Moon Base.
The Colonel wanted to talk politics; Johnny was puzzled. Finally Towers had come to the point; it was not safe (so he said) to leave control of the world in political hands; power must be held by a scientifically selected group. In short - The Patrol.
Johnny was startled rather than shocked. As an abstract idea, Towers' notion sounded plausible. The League of Nations had folded up; what would keep the United Nations from breaking up, too, and thus lead to another World War. "And you know how bad such a war would be, Johnny."
Johnny agreed. Towers said he was glad that Johnny got the point. The senior bomb officer could handle the work, but it was better to have both specialists.
Johnny sat up with a jerk. "You are going to do something about it?" He had thought the Exec was just talking.
Towers smiled. "We're not politicians; we don't just talk. We act."
Johnny whistled. "When does this start?"
Towers flipped a switch. Johnny was startled to hear his own voice, then identified the recorded conversation as having taken place in the junior officers' messroom. A political argument he remembered, which he had walked out on... a good thing, too! But being spied on annoyed him.
Towers switched it off. "We have acted," he said. "We know who is safe and who isn't. Take Kelly-" He waved at the loudspeaker. "Kelly is politically unreliable. You noticed he wasn't at breakfast?"
"Huh? I thought he was on watch."
"Kelly's watch-standing days are over. Oh, relax; he isn't hurt."
Johnny thought this over. "Which list am I on?" he asked. "Safe or unsafe?"
"Your name has a question mark after it. But I have said all along that you could be depended on." He grinned engagingly. "You won't make a liar of me, Johnny?"
Dahlquist didn't answer; Towers said sharply, "Come now - what do you think of it? Speak up."
"Well, if you ask me, you've bitten off more than you can chew. While it's true that Moon Base controls the Earth, Moon Base itself is a sitting duck for a ship. One bomb - blooie!"
Towers picked up a message form and handed it over; it read: I HAVE YOUR CLEAN LAUNDRY-ZACK. "That means every bomb in the Trygve Lie has been put out of commission. I have reports from every ship we need worry about." He stood up. "Think it over and see me after lunch. Major Morgan needs your help right away to change control frequencies on the bombs."
"The control frequencies?"
"Naturally. We don't want the bombs jammed before they reach their targets."
"What? You said the idea was to prevent war."
Towers brushed it aside. "There won't, be a war-just a psychological demonstration, an unimportant town or two. A little bloodletting to save an all-out war. Simple arithmetic."