sky—that though she
hung so close to the horizon, she would neither rise nor set in a million years. However
long one lived here, one never really accepted this fact, which violated all the racial
wisdom of mankind.
On the other side of that gulf (already so small to a generation that had never known
the time when it could not be crossed) ripples of shock and grief would soon be spreading.
Thousands of men and women were involved, directly or indirectly, because the Moon
had stirred briefly in her sleep.
Lost in his thoughts, it was some time before Lawrence realised that the Port signals
officer was trying to attract his attention.
“Excuse me, Sir—you’ve not called Duster One. Shall I do it now?”
“What? Oh yes—go ahead. Send him to help Two in Crater Lake. Tell him we’ve called
off the search in the Sea of Thirst.”
CHAPTER SIX
The news that the search had been called off reached Lagrange II when Tom Lawson,
red-eyed from lack of sleep, had almost completed the modifications to the hundred-centimetre
telescope. He had been racing against time, and now it seemed that all his efforts
had been wasted.
Selene
was not in the Sea of Thirst at all, but in a place where he could never have found
her—hidden from him by the ramparts of Crater Lake, and for good measure buried by
a few thousand tons of rock.
Tom’s first reaction was not one of sympathy for the victims, but of anger at his
wasted time and effort. Those YOUNG ASTRONOMER FINDS MISSING TOURISTS headlines would never flash across the news-screens of the inhabited worlds. As his
private dreams of glory collapsed, he cursed for a good thirty seconds, with a fluency
that would have astonished his colleagues. Then, still furious, he started to dismantle
the equipment he had begged, borrowed and stolen from the other projects on the satellite.
It would have worked, he was sure of that. The theory had been quite sound—indeed,
it was based on almost a hundred years of practice. Infra-red reconnaissance dated
back to at least as early as the Second World War, when it was used to locate camouflaged
factories by their tell-tale heat.
Though
Selene
had left no visible track across the Sea, she must surely, have left an infra-red
one. Her fans had stirred up the relatively warm dust a foot or so down, scattering
it across the far colder surface layers. An eye that could see by the rays of heat
could track her path for hours after she had passed. There would have been just time,
Tom calculated, to make such an infra-red survey before the Sun rose and obliterated
all traces of the faint heat-trail through the cold lunar night.
But, obviously, there was no point in trying now.
It was well that no one aboard
Selene
could have guessed that the search in the Sea of Thirst had been abandoned, and that
the dust-skis were concentrating their efforts inside Crater Lake. And it was well,
also, none of the passengers knew of Dr. McKenzie’s predictions.
The physicist had drawn, on a piece of home-made graph-paper, the expected rise of
temperature. Every hour he noted the reading of the cabin thermometer and pin-pointed
it on the curve. The agreement with theory was depressingly good; in twenty hours,
110 degrees Fahrenheit would be passed, and the first deaths from heat-stroke would
be occurring. Whatever way he looked at it, they had barely a day to live. In these
circumstances, Commodore Hansteen’s efforts to maintain morale seemed no more than
an ironic jest. Whether he failed or succeeded, it would be all the same by the day
after tomorrow.
Yet was that true? Though their only choice might lay between dying like men, and
dying like animals, surely the first was better. It made no difference, even if
Selene
remained undiscovered until the end of time, so that no one ever knew how her occupants
passed their final hours. This was beyond logic or reason; but so, for that matter,
was
hung so close to the horizon, she would neither rise nor set in a million years. However
long one lived here, one never really accepted this fact, which violated all the racial
wisdom of mankind.
On the other side of that gulf (already so small to a generation that had never known
the time when it could not be crossed) ripples of shock and grief would soon be spreading.
Thousands of men and women were involved, directly or indirectly, because the Moon
had stirred briefly in her sleep.
Lost in his thoughts, it was some time before Lawrence realised that the Port signals
officer was trying to attract his attention.
“Excuse me, Sir—you’ve not called Duster One. Shall I do it now?”
“What? Oh yes—go ahead. Send him to help Two in Crater Lake. Tell him we’ve called
off the search in the Sea of Thirst.”
CHAPTER SIX
The news that the search had been called off reached Lagrange II when Tom Lawson,
red-eyed from lack of sleep, had almost completed the modifications to the hundred-centimetre
telescope. He had been racing against time, and now it seemed that all his efforts
had been wasted.
Selene
was not in the Sea of Thirst at all, but in a place where he could never have found
her—hidden from him by the ramparts of Crater Lake, and for good measure buried by
a few thousand tons of rock.
Tom’s first reaction was not one of sympathy for the victims, but of anger at his
wasted time and effort. Those YOUNG ASTRONOMER FINDS MISSING TOURISTS headlines would never flash across the news-screens of the inhabited worlds. As his
private dreams of glory collapsed, he cursed for a good thirty seconds, with a fluency
that would have astonished his colleagues. Then, still furious, he started to dismantle
the equipment he had begged, borrowed and stolen from the other projects on the satellite.
It would have worked, he was sure of that. The theory had been quite sound—indeed,
it was based on almost a hundred years of practice. Infra-red reconnaissance dated
back to at least as early as the Second World War, when it was used to locate camouflaged
factories by their tell-tale heat.
Though
Selene
had left no visible track across the Sea, she must surely, have left an infra-red
one. Her fans had stirred up the relatively warm dust a foot or so down, scattering
it across the far colder surface layers. An eye that could see by the rays of heat
could track her path for hours after she had passed. There would have been just time,
Tom calculated, to make such an infra-red survey before the Sun rose and obliterated
all traces of the faint heat-trail through the cold lunar night.
But, obviously, there was no point in trying now.
It was well that no one aboard
Selene
could have guessed that the search in the Sea of Thirst had been abandoned, and that
the dust-skis were concentrating their efforts inside Crater Lake. And it was well,
also, none of the passengers knew of Dr. McKenzie’s predictions.
The physicist had drawn, on a piece of home-made graph-paper, the expected rise of
temperature. Every hour he noted the reading of the cabin thermometer and pin-pointed
it on the curve. The agreement with theory was depressingly good; in twenty hours,
110 degrees Fahrenheit would be passed, and the first deaths from heat-stroke would
be occurring. Whatever way he looked at it, they had barely a day to live. In these
circumstances, Commodore Hansteen’s efforts to maintain morale seemed no more than
an ironic jest. Whether he failed or succeeded, it would be all the same by the day
after tomorrow.
Yet was that true? Though their only choice might lay between dying like men, and
dying like animals, surely the first was better. It made no difference, even if
Selene
remained undiscovered until the end of time, so that no one ever knew how her occupants
passed their final hours. This was beyond logic or reason; but so, for that matter,
was
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