Journey Into Space by Charles Chilton Page B

radio.”
    “Now take it easy, Mitch. He’s doing his best. He’s been working all this time with no sleep. He can’t do more than that.”
    Mitch turned pale. His lips compressed and I noticed he was clenching his fists. “We should never have brought him.”
    Only the slight edge of Jet’s voice betrayed that he was having difficulty in keeping his own feelings under control.
    Mitch was beginning to shout now. “Why does he have to take so darned long? Doesn’t he know that every second is carrying us further away from the Earth--probably to our deaths?”
    This was, of course, true--in part, at any rate. All this time, although the rocket was constantly losing velocity, we were coasting further and further from Earth and closer to the Moon. And for the last few hours, apart from our routine checks, there had been little any of us could do except be patient and hope that Lemmy would be able to put the radio right.
    I glanced over at his stocky form bent over the radio panel. He worked in silence now. He had been bright enough when he started but as the tension in the cabin grew, Lemmy had become more and more reticent, working with grim desperation. I realised that he considered the failure of the radio to be his personal responsibility. He had, of course, supervised the designing of the equipment and helped install it but, although he had been working on it incessantly, he could find no fault with it.
    Fortunately the radar and televiewers were still functioning satisfactorily, and every hour or so we turned on the viewer to look at the Earth, now no more than a large globe on the screen; a globe that was ever decreasing in size. When we took our first look, only two hours after take-off, the whole Australian continent filled the screen. But gradually, as we rose higher, it decreased in size and a greater area of the Earth came into view. Soon we could identify almost the whole of Asia and, six hours later as the globe turned on its axis, Africa was spread out before us.
    On the land masses not obscured by cloud we could quite easily make out the mountains, the forest areas, the deserts and even the larger rivers. But by the time the American continent had swung into view this was no longer possible and, except where the sun was rising over the high mountain ranges, causing them to throw long shadows across the plains, the Earth looked flat.
    Now, some twenty hours after take-off, the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean filled the screen, the tiny islands with which it is studded looking like defects on the surface of a vast sheet of bright-blue glass.
    As part of the globe was always in darkness it resembled a great moon at first quarter. Every time we took a fresh look at the retreating Earth, we could measure the distance it had rotated on its axis; fifteen degrees every hour. At first it had been fascinating to watch the countries of the hemisphere facing us pass from darkness into light and then disappear round the eastern limb of the globe. We pointed out to one another the large cities such as Johannesburg, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but as the hours dragged by, the game palled. Other thoughts intruded, like the ones Mitch was voicing now.
    “Doesn’t Lemmy realise that without the radio we’re flying blind?”
    “Oh, it’s not that bad, Mitch,” Jet’s calm voice replied. “We can figure out our approximate speed and position if it comes to it. Let’s give Lemmy a couple of hours more.” I felt much reassured by this news, but Mitch apparently did not.
    “A couple of hours! If you ask me, he’ll never get that radio going. What happens if he doesn’t get through to Control at all?”
    “We’ll wait a couple of days until our velocity has dropped to its minimum and then we’ll turn the ship over and go back.”
    The effect of Jet’s remark was electrifying. The Australian sat up on his couch and, because he wasn’t wearing his boots, sailed upwards and came to an abrupt stop as