“Why not?”
“The heat. The Moon is now eighteen days old. That means that the area to the East of us is still in sunlight, and will be for another nine days.”
“We’ll wait a week, then,” Merola said. “In seven days, Mare Imbrium should be in darkness. We’ll be able to travel by night and come back by night.”
“How do you figure that?” Forbes asked.
“No, I’m wrong,” Merola said, shaking his head. “If we wait a week and then start, it would take us three days to reach the supplies, and by that time the sun already would be rising on the Western rim. We’d be caught in sunlight before we got back to the ship.” He scratched at his chin and thought silently for a few moments. “Get me a piece of paper, will you, Dan?”
Forbes opened one of the drawers and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He crossed the cabin and handed it to Merola.
“Now, let’s see.” Merola said. “It takes the sun approximately fourteen days to cross the face of the Moon. The Moon’s diameter is 2,160 miles... so if we divide that by fourteen... let’s see...” He scribbled a few figures on the paper, his brow wrinkled. “That’s approximately 154 miles every day. Right?”
“Approximately,” Forbes said.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do,” Dr. Phelps said.
“I’m just trying to figure out when we’d have to start from here in order to reach Mare Imbrium in darkness and make the trip back in darkness. You see, the Sun is now retreating across the face of the Moon at the rate of approximately 154 miles a day. Now, if we can work up some sort of a chart here.”
Quickly, Merola began writing on the sheet of paper, scribbling in figures and words:
“All right,” Forbes said, “now explain it.”
“Simple,” Merola answered, grinning. “The top line is simply a listing of the days. The second line shows how many miles the retreating Sun will have traveled at the end of each day. And the bottom line shows how many miles the supply party will have traveled at the end of each day.”
Forbes studied Merola’s figures for a moment. “In other words, if we leave here four days from now, the area of sunlight will always be ahead of us. We’ll be traveling by ‘night’ all the time.”
“Right. By the end of the seventh day, darkness will have spread approximately 1,078 miles from our present position. We should reach Mare Imbrium just as ‘night’ is falling there — or maybe a little after ‘night’ has fallen.”
“And what about getting back?” Forbes asked.
“The Moon is now eighteen days old. Add the three-day wait and the four days to get us to the supplies, and that makes 25 days. Another two and one-third days for the Moon to be in complete darkness. And another four days for the rising Sun to reach our present position. That gives us six and two-thirds days to get back here while it’s still dark. That’s plenty of time, even if we’re carrying a full load.”
“It might work,” Forbes said.
“What about oxygen?” Dr. Phelps asked.
“We’ll only need enough to get us to the supply dump. We can load up there for the return trip.”
“That’s still a lot of oxygen,” Forbes put in. “Each cylinder carries only enough for about twelve hours.”
“I figure two men will go,” Merola said. “They’ll be a little more than three days getting to the supplies... two cylinders of oxygen for each day... that means each man will need six cylinders of oxygen. We’ll give each eight, just to make sure.”
“That’s impossible,” Dr. Gehardt said. “They’d never be able to carry that many.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Merola said, his eyes clouding.
“Not on their backs, anyway,” Forbes said.
“Do they have to carry them on their backs?” Ted asked. Forbes shot a glance at him, and Ted regretted speaking as soon as the words had left his mouth.
“Baker’s right,” Merola said, the spark leaping into his eyes again. “We can build a sled or something, and pile the cylinders onto it. We could make it that way!”
“Maybe,” Forbes said.
The men fell silent, and Ted knew they were each weighing the chances of reaching the supply dump alive.
“What about food?” Dr. Phelps asked. “You won’t be able to open your face plates out there. How will you eat?”
“We’ll carry tubes of chocolate in our helmets,” Merola answered quickly. “That’ll keep us going.”
“For ten days?”
“It’ll have to do.”
“One question,” Forbes said. “What happens when we reach the supply dump? Do we bring back enough material to keep us on the Moon indefinitely?”
“That would be impossible.”
“Sure. It would also be impossible to bring back enough fuel to get us off the Moon.”
“To get us back to Earth, you mean,” Merola corrected.
“I don’t follow you,” Forbes said.
“We can bring back enough to get us off the Moon, if we plan on dropping back to the Moon again.”
“What good would that do?” Forbes wanted to know.
“It means we can bring back just enough fuel to allow us to blast off and come down again near the supply dump. After that, our worries are over.”
Dr. Phelps nodded his head. “Enough fuel to get us to Mare Imbrium, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
Forbes nodded too. “It might work. It just might work.”
“Providing,” Dr. Gehardt put in.
“Providing what?”
“Well, I hate to be a wet blanket, gentlemen, but what happens to the men who remain behind? How will they survive? Will the batteries hold out? Will there be enough food? Enough water? Enough oxygen? Or will the returning party find a ship full of dead men?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Merola admitted.
“What difference does it make?” Forbes asked
“We’ll make a check,” Merola said. “If the men left behind can’t possibly survive...” He paused and scratched his chin. “Heck, I don’t know what to say.”
“If there’s any doubt about it,” Forbes said, “we’ll all make the trip together.”
“Do we have enough oxygen?”
“I think we’d better check.”
“Okay, Dan. And while you’re checking the oxygen cylinders, you might as well go down below and see how the batteries are holding up.”
“Roger.”
Forbes grinned briefly and started for the hatch in the deck. He took two long strides, pulling up short beside the hatch. Quickly, he turned the wheel and pulled back the lid. As he started belowdecks, Merola turned back to the other men.
“Dr. Phelps, I’d like you to check our food. Dr. Gehardt, will you check our water supply?”
“Certainly.”
The two doctors started off, and Ted fidgeted uncomfortably, standing by Merola’s couch.
“I think it’ll work, Baker,” Merola said. “If we can bring back enough fuel for a blastoff to the supply dump, we can stay on the Moon as long as we like.”
“Yes, sir,” Ted said.
“Does that mean you agree with me, or are you just being polite?”
“I don’t know, sir. I mean, I don’t know if it’ll work. A thousand miles seems like such a long distance.”
“Well, it’s not exactly right around the corner.”
“That’s what I mean, sir. The two men who go. They’ll be out there for ten days. Will their suit batteries last that long?”
Merola considered this. “They may be able to replace their batteries at the dump. In fact, I’m quite sure they can. That means they’ll only need their batteries for the four-day trip to the dump.”
“Three and one-third days, sir,” Ted corrected.
“Yes, of course.”