The Wanderer

The sudden extra, jolt they gave the Baba Yaga was enough to unseat him. Inexorably, but with agonizing slowness, the stick slipped out of his hand and he fell heavily — a lot more heavily than he would have on the moon — to the floor a dozen feet below, and his helmet smashed against the back of his head, knocking him out.

Ten seconds later, the aniline-nitric jet died, as was the automatic way in these ships when you let go the stick. The solid-fuel rockets had burnt out a fractional second earlier. The correction had been calculated with remarkable accuracy, under the circumstances. The Baba Yaga was mounting almost straight up from Luna with nearly enough kinetic energy to kick free. But, now, Luna’s mild gravity was slowing the ship second by second, although the ship was still rising swiftly in free fall and would continue to do so for some time.

Don’s helmet lay across the lightly-dogged hatch. A tiny flat jet of white vapor about the size and shape of a calling card was escaping through a fine slit in the view window. Frost formed along the crack.

Barbara Katz said to Knolls Kettering III: “Less than a minute now until contact, Dad.” She meant by “contact” the moment the Wanderer would overlap the moon, or the moon the Wanderer, or -

“Excuse me, suh,” came a soft deep voice from behind them, “but what’s going to happen when they hit?”

Barbara turned. Some light was on at the back of the big house now. It silhouetted a big man in a chauffeur’s uniform and two women grouped tightly together. They must have come out very quietly.

From beside her Mr. Kettering said with thin exasperation: “I told you people to go to bed hours ago. You know I don’t want you fussing over me.”

“Excuse me, suh,” the voice persisted, “but everybody’s up and outside watching it. Everybody in Palm Beach. Please, suh, what’s going to happen when it hit the moon?”

Barbara wanted to speak up and tell the chauffeur and maids many things: that it was the moon that was moving toward the Wanderer, because the telescope’s electrically-driven mounting had been set to track the moon across the sky and the moon was now running five diameters ahead of its normal course; that they still didn’t know the distance of the Wanderer — for one thing, its surface showed no sharp details except its rim, just a velvety yellow or maroon under all magnifications; that bodies in the heavens mostly didn’t hit but went into orbit around each other.

But she knew that men — even millionaires, presumably — like to do the scientific talking; and, besides that, she disliked having to fool around with Palm Beach interracial etiquette.

Then she looked up and saw that the problem had solved itself.

“They’re not hitting,” she said. “The moon is passing in front of the Wanderer.” She added impulsively: “Oh, Dad, I didn’t believe it was really out there until now.”

There were little gasps from the women.

“The Wanderer?” the chauffeur asked softly.

Knolls Kettering III took over. He said, a bit primly: “The Wanderer is the name Miss Katz and I have selected for the strange planet. Now please go to bed.”

Arab Jones called across the roof to Pepe Martinez and High Bundy, who were waltzing together free-style: “Hey, man, look, they mating now! Old Moon going into her like a sperm into a purple egg.”

The three interracial weed-brothers had smoked four more prime reefers to celebrate the master-kick of the Wanderer’s appearance and they were now high as kites — high as orbital radar beacons! But not so high, if one ever is, as to be utterly devoid of reasoning powers, for Pepe exclaimed: “How those square Mexicans must be crossing themselves south of the border, and the brownies dancing down Rio way,” while High summed it up with: “Like this, man: kicks has come into the world to stay.”

Arab said, his brown face gleaming in the Wanderer’s glow: “Let us fold our tent and descend, my sons, and mingle with the terrified populace.”

Hunter said to Doc: “The moon has sure thumbtacked it down out there,” referring to the plaster-white round standing in front of the Wanderer. “In fact, I’m beginning to wonder — remembering the similar triangles, Rudy — whether it mayn’t be two and a half million miles away and eighty thousand miles across.”

“Jupiter come to call, hey?” Doc replied with a chuckle and then immediately demanded of the others: “Well, can anyone point out Jupiter to me elsewhere in the sky right now? Though,” he added, “I’ve got to admit I never heard of a purple aspect for Jupiter or a yellow spot in the form of a giant duck.”

“A penguin!” Ann called from behind them.