A Fall of Moondust

Carrying one small case full of clothing, and one large case full of equipment, Tom Lawson entered the liner twenty minutes after his departure from Lagrange. The shuttle pilot had refused to hurry, despite urgings from Auriga. The new passenger was greeted without warmth as he came aboard; he would have been received quite differently had anyone known his mission. The Chief Administrator, however, had ruled that it should be kept secret for the present; he did not wish to raise false hopes among the relatives of the lost passengers. The Tourist Commissioner had wanted an immediate release, maintaining that it would prove that they were doing their best, but Olsen had said firmly: “Wait until he produces results. Then you can give something to your friends in the news agencies.”

The order was already too late. Aboard Auriga, Maurice Spenser, Bureau Chief of Interphanet News, was on his way to take up his duties in Clavius City . He was not sure if this was a promotion or demotion from Peking , but it would certainly be a change.

Unlike all the other passengers, he was not in the least annoyed by the change of course. The delay was on the firm's time, and, as an old newsman, he always welcomed the unusual, the break in the established routine. It was certainly odd for a Moon-bound liner to waste several hours and an unimaginable amount of energy to stop at Lagrange, just to pick up a dour-faced young man with a couple of pieces of baggage. And why the diversion from Clavius to Port Roris? “Top-level instructions from Earth,” said the skipper, and seemed to be telling the truth when he disowned all further knowledge. It was a mystery, and mysteries were Spenser's business. He made one shrewd guess at the reason, and was right—or almost right—the first time.

It must have something to do with that lost dust-cruiser there had been such a fuss about just before he left Earth. This scientist from Lagrange must have some information about her, or must be able to assist in the search. But why the secrecy? Perhaps there was some scandal or mistake that the Lunar Administration was trying to hush up. The simple and wholly creditable reason never occurred to Spenser.

He avoided speaking to Lawson during the remainder of the brief trip, and was amused to note that the few passengers who tried to strike up a conversation were quickly rebuffed. Spenser bided his time, and that time came thirty minutes before landing.

It was hardly an accident that he was sitting next to Lawson when the order came to fasten seat belts for deceleration. With the fifteen Other passengers, they sat in the tiny, blackedout lounge, hooking at the swiftly approaching Moon. Projected on a viewing screen from a lens in the outer hull, the image seemed sharper and more brilliant even than in real life. It was as if they were inside an old-fashioned camera obscura; the arrangement was much safer than having an actual observation window—a structural hazard that spaceship designers fought against tooth and nail.

That dramatically expanding landscape was a glorious and unforgettable sight, yet Spenser could give it only half his attention. He was watching the man beside him, his intense aquiline features barely visible in the reflected light from the screen.

“Isn't it somewhere down there,” he said, in his most casual tone of voice, “that the boatload of tourists has just been lost?”

“Yes,” said Tom, after a considerable delay.

“I don't know my way about the Moon. Any idea where they're supposed to be?”

Even the most uncooperative of men, Spenser had long ago discovered, could seldom resist giving information if you made it seem that they were doing you a favor, and gave them a chance of airing their superior knowledge. The trick worked in nine cases out of ten: it worked now with Tom Lawson.

“They're down there,” he said, pointing to the center of the screen. “Those are the Mountains of Inaccessibility; that's the Sea of Thirst all around them.”

Spenser stared, in entirely unsimulated awe, at the sharply etched blacks and whites of the mountains toward which they were falling. He hoped the pilot—human or electronic—knew his job; the ship seemed to be coming in very fast. Then he realized that they were drifting toward the flatter territory on the left of the picture; the mountains and the curious gray area surrounding them were sliding away from the center of the screen.

“Port Roris,” Tom volunteered unexpectedly, pointing to a barely visible black mark on the far left. “That's where we're landing.”

“Well! I'd hate to come down in those mountains,” said Spenser, determined to keep the conversation on target. “They'll never find the poor devils if they're lost in that wilderness. Anyway, aren't they supposed to be buried under an avalanche?”

Tom gave a superior laugh.

“They're supposed to be,” he said.

“Why—isn't that true?”

A little belatedly, Tom remembered his instructions.

“Can't tell you anything more,” he replied in that same smug, cocksure voice.