Dr. Phelps gripped Ted’s shoulders with his long, bony fingers. “Do you think you can do it, Baker?”
Ted hesitated a moment. “I... can’t promise anything. I... I’ll study the figures and the controls and... I’ll... try.”
“And that’s not enough,” Forbes put in quickly.
Dr. Phelps smiled. “It’s more than any of us can do, Dan. You could help with the computation, but the boy has had training. Not specialized training, true, but perhaps enough to save the expedition. I’m afraid neither an engineer, a geologist, nor a physician is going to be much help in this situation.”
“That’s why Jack was to have come along,” Forbes said. “If Baker hadn’t...”
“But Baker did,” Dr. Phelps said, “and Baker is here now. Jack is a long way off.”
Forbes walked to the viewport and stood looking out at the stars. “Do what you want to do,” he said sullenly.
“We’ll let Baker try it,” Dr. Phelps said.
“Yes,” Dr. Gehardt agreed confidently.
Ted silently wished he could share the geologist’s confidence.
The rocket raced through space, a silver ship biting at the canopy of the sky. The blackness was dense, an almost tangible thing that spread around the ship like the heavy folds of a cloak. There was no sound. The blackness was a silent thing, immeasurable, infinite.
Only the stars interrupted the monotony of endless darkness.
Only the stars — and the cold Moon hanging against the ebony sky ahead.
There wasn’t much time.
There wasn’t much time. Hardly enough time, Ted thought. Even with Forbes grudgingly calling off the figures and going over the controls with him, he felt the pressure of time against him. He studied the controls with the patient care of a mother hen coddling her brood. He checked each instrument, comparing the figures with the theoretical ones the Space Station had supplied. He studied every button, every lever, every switch. And periodically he would glance up at the radar screen as the Moon grew larger and larger.
The Moon waited. The Moon had all the time in the world. There was no rush, no rush at all. Its crags and craters bleakly poked at the sky, oblivious of the speeding rocket, oblivious of the sweating, anxious men within that rocket. It waited.
The map was clear, and the area was plainly marked. If he worked everything correctly, they would come down within fifty yards of the supply dump. They would come down gently, easing toward the surface of the Moon on their stern jets, sitting down like a cat on a velvet pillow. If they came down correctly. There was the strong possibility that they would not come down correctly. And as Ted studied the map, he remembered that an unhindered fall to the surface of the Moon would crash the rocket at a speed of more than 5,000 miles per hour.
There wouldn’t be much left to pick up.
The rocket hurried to reach the embrace of the Moon. It ate space hungrily, swallowing the blackness, devouring the miles with a ravenous appetite. Its speed had been slowing, but that would soon change. When it reached a spot 24,000 miles from the Moon, the gravitational fields of Earth and its satellite would balance exactly. After that, the rocket would build up speed again, falling faster and faster, falling toward the uncompromising surface of the Moon. The rocket hurried toward its rendezvous.
Ted worked furiously with pencil and paper, referring constantly to the instruments that measured their speed and distance from the Moon. He would have to start turnover soon. With time to accomplish this first step in the landing, the task would not be so difficult.
Tremulously, he told the men what he intended doing.
“It’s in your hands,” Dr. Phelps said.
“Do as you see fit,” Dr. Gehardt said, nodding his bald head.
Forbes said nothing. He crouched beside Merola, studying the captain’s pale features.
The buttons were pushed and the circuits closed. The hum of the engines politely intruded into the silence of space. At the ship’s center of gravity, the flywheel began to rotate, slowly at first, and then increasing in speed. The port rockets spit yellow fire into the night, and the ship turned slowly, like a lethargic grub on a vast, black leaf.
Its nose pointed back over the miles it had covered, and its stern jets came around toward the face of the Moon, slowly, slowly.
Ted stood by the control panel, watching the Moon disappear from the forward radar screen. He flicked on the rear radar, then waited. The Moon shoved its way across the screen, still distant, yet ever closer. In the forward radar, Earth appeared, blue against the blackness, large. Ted closed a knife switch, and the engines swallowed their own roar until there was only silence again and the harsh breathing of the men.
“Does that do it?” Forbes asked. There was bitterness in his voice, but there was concern too.
“I think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“When will we know?” Dr. Gehardt asked.
“When we actually come down,” Ted said. “We’ll start braking when we get a little closer to the Moon.”
“How close?” Forbes asked.
“I figure we should start braking when the Moon is about two hundred miles below us.”
“What...”
“It’s not so risky as it sounds, sir,” Ted said.
“Not risky? Traveling at something like 5,000 miles an hour?”
“If we can produce a deceleration of one gravity with our rockets — and I know we can — we’ll be able to check our fall in about four minutes. That should bring us down to the surface.”
“Let the boy do it his way,” Dr. Phelps said.
“Sure,” Forbes said sarcastically. “It’s only our necks.”
In the radar screen the Moon grew larger. The rocket charged through space like a knight in silver armor. On the instrument panel, the electronic impulses being sent to the Moon’s surface bounced back with blinding rapidity, recording the distances. A thousand miles. Five hundred miles. Four hundred miles. Three hundred miles.
“Better take to the couches,” Ted said.
“Are we ready to land?”
“Yes. Almost.”
“Are we going to come down near the supplies?”
“I... I think so.”
He eyed the radar screen again, the Moon completely filling it now. The men shuffled to the couches, removed their sandals, and strapped themselves in. Ted climbed into his own couch, swinging the portable control panel into place. His eyes never left the instruments as his finger hovered over the button that would release the fury of the engines once more. The range marker dropped to two-fifty, two-forty, two-thirty...
The rocket fell toward the Moon, its blasting tubes pointing toward the surface, its nose turned away from the satellite. The open ends of the tubes were blackened and scorched — dead holes punched in a silver frame.
And suddenly they belched fire, and the ship seemed to tremble with the sudden thrust. A livid tail of yellow lashed at the sky, ripping at the blackness.
The ship shuddered, swallowing its tail as it plunged downward.
Together, like two wrestlers, the rocket and the Moon reached for each other.
Chapter 9
Crashup
It was all wrong. Somehow, it felt all wrong, like running for a pop fly when you’re certain you’re going to miss it. Ted felt just that way. He watched the surface of the Moon expand in the radar screen, and he knew with sickening insight that he had missed the supply dump.