And then we hit– bumped–something. The impact came from the side, and it was hard enough to knock the breath out of me with an audible Oof!I heard Alexei say something that sounded like "Gohvno!"I got the sense that gohvnowas something I didn't want to step in.
And then we were in free fall again–or maybe not. But we were still airborne–except there isn't any air on Luna, and we weren't being borne by anything–we were just up.
And then down. We bounced again–this time from the other side and even harder than before. The whole pod went crunch!
And then we were up again–floating for a long agonizing moment–until crunchbang!We bounced again. I couldn't believe the balloons were working. This hurt!
Floated and bounced, bounced, bounced–and then abruptly crunched to a stop–was that it? Were we down? We were hanging sideways and upside down in the webbing–
I fumbled for the release. It was hard to move; we were still pinned by the packing bubbles. They smelled of canned air.
"Don't anyone move–" shouted Alexei. "We're not done yet."
We waited in silence for a moment.
Nothing happened.
"Douglas?"
No answer.
"Mickey?"
I called louder.
"Ymf," said Mickey.
"What's happening?"
"Wait," said Alexei.
The cargo pod lurched.Sideways. "Is the balloons. Rearranging selves. Everybody wait."
"Douglas? Douglas–?" Where was Douglas!I had this sudden nightmare knowledge that he had died in the crash. Then I would be really alone.
"Is not to worry. Nobody is dead," said Alexei. "Everybody wait! Pod must settle itself!" The pod continued to shudder and jerk and bump. Slowly, it began to hump itself upright. The pod was pumping air from balloon to balloon, pushing itself up with plastic muscles.
"Everybody stay still," said Alexei. Like we had a choice.
I was still worried about Douglas. "Mickey? Can you see Douglas? Is he all right?"
After a moment, Mickey called back. "He's fine. He's groaning."
The pressure on my chest began to ease. The packing bubbles were starting to wilt, slowly deflating. I guessed they were timed or something.
Finally, the cargo pod groaned and settled itself. "Please to wait–" cautioned Alexei. It bumped and lurched one more time, then sagged into an exhausted upright position. We were hanging from the webbing at the top. The only good news was the Lunar gravity. One‑sixth Earth normal. It felt … strange and easy at the same time.
As soon as he decided it was safe–and not soon enough for me–Alexei unbuckled himself and began climbing around the webbing like a human spider. He unbuckled Mickey first. Mickey's face was covered with blood. He held a soggy red handkerchief over his nose. He must have had a nosebleed all the way down.
"I go find first‑aid kit," said Alexei. "You take care of dingalings." He dropped down between two of the crates, and we heard the packing bubbles squeak and squeal and pop as he pushed his way through. It was a funny noise. It sounded like someone with water in his boots, squelching through a sewer. The canned air smell got stronger.
Mickey lowered himself to a crate, standing knee deep in squooshy balloons. He picked his way over to stand beneath me. Still holding his head back, still holding the hanky over his nose, he called up to me. "Can you free yourself, Charles?"
"I think so."
"You'll have to help me with Douglas. We'll lower him to the top of the crates. All right?"
"All right." I fumbled around with the latch for a moment–it wasn't hard to unbuckle, but my hands were shaking so badly from the landing that I couldn't coordinate. Finally, I managed to free myself–
I was never very good at gymnastics, but in Lunar gravity, everything was so surprisingly easy that I wished we could have had gym class on the moon, it was a lot more fun. I hung from the webbing without any effort at all. I did the math in my head; I weighed nine kilos.
Mickey pointed and I went hand over hand to Douglas. He looked pale, but he was breathing steadily into his O‑mask. I wondered if he'd passed out during braking or if he'd bumped himself unconscious during landing, a concussion would be very bad news, but we wouldn't know until we got him out of the webbing.
Mickey stood just below me, still holding his hanky to his nose. He gave me careful instructions, step by step, how to lower Douglas without dropping him. Even though falling three meters in Lunar gravity is no worse than falling half a meter on Earth, we still didn't want to take any chances. People had broken noses, arms, legs, and hips by underestimating Lunar gravity–especially after prolonged free fall. And we were all very shaky from the bounce‑down.
"Lower him feet first, Charles. Grab him under his arms and hold him till I get his legs. I know it's awkward, but he should be light enough that you can handle him. All right, ready?" Mickey started to take his handkerchief away from his nose, but it was still bleeding too badly.
"Maybe we should wait until Alexei gets back. Let him do it."
"I can manage. We'll do it quickly. Wait a minute." He wiped at his nose for a second, then looked up. "Okay, ready?"
"Ready." I unbuckled Douglas with one hand, then reached and grabbed him before he could fall out of the webbing. He started to slip out of my grasp, but I caught him by the collar and held on. That was enough. Mickey grabbed his legs and lowered him.
Still hanging from the webbing, I scrambled over to check on Stinky. He was sleeping like a baby, and almost as cute. "Leave him there for now," called Mickey. "Let's take care of Douglas first."
I let go of the webbing and dropped down to the top of the crates. I dropped impossibly slow. It was amazing.We really were on the moon! I hit a little harder than I expected, and I bounced almost all the way back up, laughing with delight. Mickey gave me a nasty look. "There'll be time enough for that later." He put his hand back to his nose.
Alexei came climbing back then and yanked me out of the air. "Learn to walk before you fly," he said. He popped open the first‑aid kit and began pawing through it. "Here, this will stop nosebleed very fast." He held up a tiny spray bottle, and Mickey tilted his head back.
While they did that, I went rummaging in the kit for old‑fashioned smelling salts. I found a little flat packet of ammonia, cracked its spine, and held it under Douglas's nose–he didn't react. I waved it under his nose again– come on, Douglas!I was ready to jam it up his nostril when he suddenly flinched and said, "Stop it, Charles!" He made a terrible face and pushed me away with both hands.
He sat up, still wrinkling his nose in disgust as he looked around. He blinked in surprise. "What happened to you, Mickey?"
"Ahhh," said Alexei, turning around. "The dead have come back to life. Welcome to Luna! My home sweet home!"
STEPPING OUT
Mickey finally gave up and put cotton up each nostril and a clip on his nose to pin his nostrils together. He'd just have to breathe through his mouth for a while.
The funny thing was, he'd been trained in all kinds of safety procedures on the Line, so he was practically a space doctor. Alexei was equally well trained, so you'd have thought between the two of them they could have figured something out–but apparently the low air pressure in the pod, combined with the lighter gravity and everything else, made this particular nosebleed slow to heal. But we couldn't sit around waiting for Mickey to stop dripping. Alexei was certain about that. We'd lose the advantage of our landing.