A Fall of Moondust

Sick at heart, Tom Lawson looked up from the viewing screen and stared incredulously across the dust. To the unaided eye, it was still absolutely featureless—the same unbroken gray it had always been. But by infrared, it was as dappled as the sea during a cloudy day on Earth, when the waters are covered with shifting patterns of sunlight and shadow.

Yet there were no clouds here to cast their shadows on this arid sea; this dappling must have some other cause. Whatever it might be, Tom was too stunned to look for the scientific explanation. He had come all the way to the Moon, had risked neck and sanity on this crazy ride—and at the end of it all, some quirk of nature had ruined his carefully planned experiment. It was the worst possible luck, and he felt very sorry for himself.

Several minutes later, he got around to feeling sony for the people aboard Selene.

“So,” said the skipper of the Auriga, with exaggerated calm, “you would like to land on the Mountains of Inaccessibility. That's a verra interesting idea.”

It was obvious to Spenser that Captain Anson had not taken him seriously; he probably thought he was dealing with a crazy newsman who had no conception of the problems involved. That would have been correct twelve hours before, when the whole plan was only a vague dream in Spenser's mind. But now he had all the information at his fingertips, and knew exactly what he was doing.

“I've heard you boast, Captain, that you could land this ship within a meter of any given point. Is that right?”

“Well—with a little help from the computer.”

“That's good enough. Now take a look at this photograph”

“What is it? Glasgow on a wet Saturday night?”

“I'm afraid it's badly overenlarged, but it shows all we want to know. It's a blowup of this area—just below the western peak of the Mountains. I'll have a much better copy in a few hours, and an accurate contour map—Lunar Survey's drawing one now, working from the photos in their files. My point is that there's a wide ledge here—wide enough for a dozen ships to land. And it's fairly flat, at least at these points here, and here. So a landing would be no problem at all, from your point of view.”

“No technical problem, perhaps. But have you any idea what it would cost?”

“That's my affair, Captain—or my network's. We think it may be worthwhile, if my hunch comes off.”

Spenser could have said a good deal more, but it was bad business to show how much you needed someone else's wares. This might well be the news story of the decade-the first space rescue that had ever taken place literally under the eyes of the TV cameras. There had been enough accidents and disasters in space, heaven knows, but they had lacked all elements of drama or suspense. Those involved had died instantly, or had been beyond all hope of rescue when their predicament was discovered. Such tragedies produced headlines, but not sustained human-interest stories like the one he sensed here.

“There's not only the money,” said the Captain, though his tone implied that there were few matters of greater importance. “Even if the owners agree, you'll have to get special clearance from Space Control, Earthside.”

“I know; someone is working on it now. That can be organized.”

“And what about Lloyd's? Our policy doesn't cover little jaunts like this.”

Spenser leaned across the table, and prepared to drop his city-buster.

“Captain,” he said slowly, “Interplanet News is prepared to deposit a bond for the insured value of the ship-which I happen to know is a somewhat inflated six million four hundred and twenty-five thousand and fifty sterling dollars.”

Captain Anson blinked twice, and his whole attitude changed immediately. Then, looking very thoughtful, he poured himself another drink.

“I never imagined I'd take up mountaineering at my time of life,” he said. “But if you're fool enough to plonk down six million stollars—then my heart's in the highlands.”

To the great relief of her husband, Mrs. Schuster's evidence had been interrupted by lunch. She was a talkative lady, and was obviously delighted at the first opportunity she had had in years of letting her hair down. Her career, such as it was, had not been particularly distinguished when fate and the Chicago police had brought it to a sudden close, but she had certainly got around, and had known many of the great performers at the turn of the century. To not a few of the older passengers, her reminiscences brought back memories of their own youth, and faint echoes from the songs of the nineteen-nineties. At one point, without any protest from the Court, she led the entire company in a rendering of that durable favorite, “Space-suit Blues.” As a morale-builder, the Commodore decided, Mrs. Schuster was worth her weight in gold—and that was saying a good deal.