The Wanderer

“But this is important,” Hunter went on, loudly speaking half to Paul and half past Paul down to Doc kneeling in the sand. “If that thing’s just a hundred miles up, it’s in Earth’s shadow and can’t be reflecting sunlight So suppose we figure it’s just ten miles up. That’s altitude enough for illumination of a wide area. And then it would be just three-tenths of a mile across — only five hundred yards. Rudolf, listen — I know we all laughed at old Charlie Fulby’s idea of a fire balloon, but balloons over a hundred yards in diameter have been flown to altitudes of twenty miles and more. If we assume a gigantic balloon carrying inside itself a tremendous light source, which perhaps adds to the lift by heating the balloon’s gas…” He broke off. “Rudolf, what the hell are you doing down there?”

Doc had thrust the furled umbrella deep into the sand and was crouched behind it, peering up toward them through the curve of the umbrella’s handle. The Wanderer was reflected fantastically in his thick lenses.

“I’m checking that damn thing’s orbit,” Doc called up. “I’m lining it up with the corner of the big table and this umbrella. Don’t anybody move that table!”

“Well, I’m telling you,” Hunter called back, “that it may not have an orbit at all, but simply be floating. I’m telling you it may be nothing but a balloon as big as five football fields.”

“Ross Hunter!” Rama Joan’s voice was ringing and carried the hint of a laugh. The bearded man looked around. So did the others.

“Ross Hunter!” Rama Joan repeated. “Twenty minutes ago you were telling us of great symbols in the sky and now you’re willing to settle for a big red and yellow balloon. Oh, you children, look at the moon!”

Paul copied those who held up a hand to blank out the Wanderer. The eastern rim of the moon glowed whitely, almost one-third out of eclipse, but even that area had colored flecks on it, while the brownishly shadowed margin around it was full of purple and golden gleams. Unquestionably, the light of the Wanderer was falling at least as fiercely on that side of the moon as on the Earth.

The silence was broken by a sudden rat-a-tat-tat. The Little Man had unfolded a collapsible portable typewriter on his knees and was pecking away at it. To Margo, that irregular clicking sounded as lonely and incongruous as a tap dance on a tomb in a graveyard.

General Spike Stevens snapped: “O.K., since HQ One isn’t taking it, we are. Jimmy, crash this order through to Moon-base: LIFT A SHIP AND SCOUT THE NEW PLANET BEHIND YOU. ESTIMATED DISTANCE FROM YOU 25,000 MILES. (Add the lunacentric spatial coordinates there!) VITAL WE HAVE INTELLIGENCE. SEND DATA DIRECT.”

Colonel Griswold said: “Spike, their ship senders haven’t the power to reach us.”

“They’ll relay through Moonbase.”

“Not through the thickness of the moon they won’t.”

Spike snapped his fingers. “O.K., tell ’em to lift two ships. One to reconnoiter, the other — after a suitable interval — to relay to Moonbase. Hold that. They’re supposed to have three ships operational, aren’t they? Good, make it two to scout the new planet, north and south, and one to orbit the moon as cover point and relay. Yes, Will, I know that just leaves ’em one man and no ship to hold down home, but we’ve got to get intelligence even if we strip the base.”

Colonel Mabel Wallingford, shivering in the electric atmosphere of the buried room, suddenly wondered: What if it’s not a problem? Spike won’t be able to handle it then. I’ll have given him his little victory and I’ll see it taken away!

Margo Gelhorn heard one of the women say: “Don’t try to get up yet, Charlie.” The Ramrod lay back in her arms and watched the Wanderer quite tranquilly, a faint smile playing around his lips.

On an impulse Margo leaned over. So did Rama Joan, mechanically tucking in the trailing end of her green turban.

“Ispan,” the gaunt man said faintly. “Oh, Ispan, how did I not know thee? Guess I must have never thought about this side of you.” Then, more loudly: “Ispan, all purple and gold. Ispan, the Imperial Planet.”

“Ispan-Hispan,” the Little Man said without emotion, continuing to type.

“Charlie Fulby, you old liar,” Rama Joan said almost tenderly, “why do you keep it up? You know you never set foot on another planet in your whole life.”

The woman glared but the Ramrod looked up at the green-turbaned one holding him without rancor. “Not in the body, no, that’s quite true, Rama,” he said. “But I’ve visited them for years in my thoughts. I’m as sure of their reality as Plato was of universals or Euclid of infinity. Ispan and Arietta and Brima have to exist, just like God. I know. But to make people understand in this materialistic age, I had to pretend I’d visited them in the flesh.”

“Why do you drop the pretence now?” Rama Joan pressed lightly, as if she already knew the answer.