I heard him stumble and fall. I called to him, but he didn't answer.
I tried to get up, but I was stuck fast, a cork in a bottle
I came to, lying face down with a clean sheet under me. Feeling better? someone asked. It was Knowles, standing by my bed, dressed in a bathrobe.
You're dead, I told him.
Not a bit. He grinned. They got to us in tune.
What happened? I stared at him, still not believing my eyes.
Just like we thought a crashed rocket. An unmanned mail rocket got out of control and hit the tunnel.
Where's Fats?
Hi!
I twisted my head around; it was Konski, face down like myself.
You owe me twenty, he said cheerfully.
I owe you I found I was dripping tears for no good reason. Okay, I owe you twenty. But you'll have to come to Des Moines to collect it.
The Black Pits of Luna
The morning after we got to the Moon we went over to Rutherford. Dad and Mr. Latham Mr. Latham is the man from the Harriman Trust that Dad came to Luna City to see Dad and Mr. Latham had to go anyhow, on business. I got Dad to promise I could go along because it looked like just about my only chance to get out on the surface of the Moon. Luna City is all right, I guess, but I defy you to tell a corridor in Luna City from the sublevels in New York except that you're light on your feet, of course.
When Dad came into our hotel suite to say we were ready to leave, I was down on the floor, playing mumblety-peg with my kid brother. Mother was lying down and had asked me to keep the runt quiet. She had been dropsick all the way out from Earth and I guess she didn't feel very good. The runt had been fiddling with the lights, switching them from dusk to desert suntan and back again. I collared him and sat him down on the floor.
Of course, I don't play mumblety-peg any more, but, on the Moon, it's a right good game. The knife practically floats and you can do all kinds of things with it. We made up a lot of new rules.
Dad said, Switch in plans, my dear. We're leaving for Rutherford right away. Let's pull ourselves together.
Mother said, Oh, mercy me I don't think I'm up to it. You and Dickie run along. Baby Darling and I will just spend a quiet day right here.
Baby Darling is the runt.
I could have told her it was the wrong approach. He nearly put my eye out with the knife and said, Who? What? I'm going too. Let's go!
Mother said, Oh, now, Baby Darling don't cause Mother Dear any trouble. We'll go to the movies, just you and I.
The runt is seven years younger than I am, but don't call him Baby Darling if you want to get anything out of him. He started to bawl. You said I could go! he yelled.
No, Baby Darling. I haven't mentioned it to you. I
Daddy said I could go!
Richard, did you tell Baby he could go?
Why, no, my dear, not that I recall. Perhaps I
The kid cut in fast. You said I could go anywhere Dickie went. You promised me you promised me you promised me. Sometimes you have to hand it to the runt; he had them jawing about who told him what in nothing flat. Anyhow, this is how, twenty minutes later, the four of us were up at the rocket port with Mr. Latham and climbing into the shuttle for Rutherford.
The trip only takes about ten minutes and you don't see much, just a glimpse of the Earth while the rocket is still near Luna City and then not even that, since the atom plants where we were going are all on the back side of the Moon, of course. There were maybe a dozen tourists along and most of them were dropsick as soon as we went into free flight. So was Mother. Some people never will get used to rockets.
But Mother was all right as soon as we grounded and were inside again. Rutherford isn't like Luna City; instead of extending a tube out to the ship, they send a pressurized car out to latch on to the airlock of the rocket, then you jeep back about a mile to the entrance to underground. I liked that and so did the runt. Dad had to go off on business with Mr. Latham, leaving Mother and me and the runt to join up with the party of tourists for the trip through the laboratories.
It was all right but nothing to get excited about. So far as I can see, one atomics plant looks about like another; Rutherford could just as well have been the main plant outside Chicago. I mean to say everything that is anything is out of sight, covered up, shielded. All you get to see are some dials and instrument boards and people watching them. Remote control stuff, like Oak Ridge. The guide tells you about the experiments going on and they show you some movies that's all.
I liked our guide. He looked like Tom Jeremy in The Space Troopers. I asked him if he was a spaceman and he looked at me kind of funny and said, no, that he was just a Colonial Services ranger. Then he asked me where I went to school and if I belonged to the Scouts. He said he was scoutmaster of Troop One, Rutherford City, Moonbat Patrol.
I found out there was just the one patrol not many scouts on the Moon, I suppose.
Dad and Mr. Latham joined us just as we finished the tour while Mr. Perrin that's our guide was announcing the trip outside. The conducted tour of Rutherford, he said, talking as if it were a transcription, includes a trip by spacesuit out on the surface of the Moon, without extra charge, to see the Devil's Graveyard and the site of the Great Disaster of 1984. The trip is optional. There is nothing particularly dangerous about it and we've never had anyone hurt, but the Commission requires that you sign a separate release for your own safety if you choose to make this trip. The trip takes about one hour. Those preferring to remain behind will find movies and refreshments in the coffee shop.
Dad was rubbing his hands together. This is for me, he announced. Mr. Latham, I'm glad we got back in time. I wouldn't have missed this for the world.
You'll enjoy it, Mr. Latham agreed, and so will you, Mrs. Logan. I'm tempted to come along myself.
Why don't you? Dad asked.
No, I want to have the papers ready for you and the Director to sign when you get back and before you leave for Luna City.
Why knock yourself out? Dad urged him. If a man's word is no good, his signed contract is no better. You can mail the stuff to me at New York.
Mr. Latham shook his head. No, really I've been out on the surface dozens of times. But I'll come along and help you into your spacesuits.
Mother said, Oh dear, she didn't think she'd better go; she wasn't sure she could stand the thought of being shut up in a spacesuit and besides glaring sunlight always gave her a headache.
Dad said, Don't be silly, my dear; it's the chance of a lifetime, and Mr. Latham told her that the filters on the helmets kept the light from being glaring. Mother always objects and then gives in. I suppose women just don't have any force of character. Like the night before earth-night, I mean, Luna City time she had bought a fancy moonsuit to wear to dinner in the Earth-View room at the hotel, then she got cold feet. She complained to Dad that she was too plump to dare to dress like that.
Well, she did show an awful lot of skin. Dad said, Nonsense, my dear. You look ravishing. So she wore it and had a swell time, especially when a pilot tried to pick her up.
It was like that this time. She came along. We went into the outfitting room and I looked around while Mr. Perrin was getting them all herded in and having the releases signed. There was the door to the airlock to the surface at the far end, with a bull's-eye window in it and another one like it in the door beyond. You could peek through and see the surface of the Moon beyond, looking hot and bright and sort of improbable, in spite of the amber glass in the windows. And there was a double row of spacesuits hanging up, looking like empty men. I snooped around until Mr. Perrin got around to our party.
We can arrange to leave the youngster in the care of the hostess in the coffee shop, he was telling Mother. He reached down and tousled the runt's hair. The runt tried to bite him and he snatched his hand away in a hurry.