Mission to the Moon Page 15

  There was a sort of ledge a few feet from the very top, and Mark had seated himself there. At his back and to his left, a small projection rose up to the height of his shoulders, forming a sort of throne for him. It had left him in a position to see nearly all of Dewey Bay. The ferry and his rocket were within his view, and beyond, over the horizon, there was the great disk of Earth shining on him.

  He was dead, of course. The open valve on his helmet showed that he had chosen to die quickly, when the air in his suit began to grow diick and stale. But his face was frozen in the same smile Jim had seen so often, and he was staring up at the Earth with no sign of regrets.

  He'd left his final words, too. There was a sharp piece of metal in his hand, and scratched into the rock of the cliff were two lines:

  PRIVATE PROPERTY This World Claimed for Humanity!

  Chapter 20 Ne* wc-w*

  I

  he passenger globe of the Goddard was trembling faintly from the work of the men who were tearing out the cargo tank to use as huts. Jim sat in it, removing the official papers he would need. But his eyes were out on the plain beyond.

  Jonas slipped in quietly behind him, and also looked across the lunar landscape to the place where they'd left Mark in the place he'd chosen for himself. The pilot had been the first man to walk on the surface of this satellite, and it had seemed fitting that he should remain on it.

  "I suppose he'll be the greatest of the Moon's heroes," Jonas said at last. "They'll have his words engraved all over, and statues of him on every corner. I guess he'd like that."

  Jim nodded. Most of his grief was gone by now. It was hard to feel anguish over a man who hadn't

  regretted what had happened to him, and he was sure that Mark had somehow died happy. "Any news on Freddy?" he asked.

  "Not yet, since Perez is keeping him under drugs. We should hear soon." Jonas sighed and sank down into one of the seats. "What a pilot the kid will make, if he learns a little discipline. There was nothing wrong with his landing, Nora tells me—just a bad rock. In five years, with the colony here . . ."

  "A colony in five years?" Jim asked. He'd heard more talk while he had pitched in to help set up the living quarters down in the crevasse on his return, but he'd discounted that as part of the same wild dreams he had heard already too often on the ship. Now, coming from Jonas, it began to take on more than the value of idle chatter.

  Jonas stared back at him in surprise. "Haven't you heard any of the news, Jim?"

  He switched on the radio to the relay station broadcast without waiting for an answer. The words of some announcer came in promptly, but at first they had no meaning. Then, as Jonas began filling in, Jim sat up in his seat, trying to digest what he'd heard. It was incredible enough, even without the extraordinary speed at which it had been accomplished.

  The committee appointed by the World Congress to regulate the internationalization of space included some of the best minds in all countries, and they'd already covered an amazing amount of ground. It was no mere figurehead group, but men who obviously meant to make sure that space was developed properly, and with no strings attached. More amazing, both the Combine and Alliance seemed perfectly willing to go along with the arrangement.

  "But why?" Jim asked. "They fought to keep each other out of space, and they wrangled over the stations! Why all this?"

  Jonas shrugged. "It's a complicated story, Jim, though I got advance warnings that something like this might be in the wind. I suppose you could say that the world is growing up and learning to co-operate, just as you've been doing. Maybe that's part of it, and I'd like to think so. But I suspect the real reason is that there was no other solution possible. They had to come to this, though it took a lot of slow juggling by President Andrews and Peter Chiam to bring things around to a level where they could try it."

  "But they both lose space this way!" Jim protested. "Maybe the people as a whole gain it, but it gets out of their control."

  "They can't control it anyhow, and they've found it out," Jonas said. "They don't dare let space stay a national affair. They've had too much trouble even with the stations. And out here, they can't afford to police a whole planet. But that's what they'd have to do. There's no real value to them worth fighting for in space, but things would get out of hand, just the same. They can't extend their sphere of power out here without the strength to back it up—and they literally can't afford that. Space had to be taken out of their hands, and we're just lucky that Andrews and Chiam could see it and still see the need to get out here."

  It was hard to accept the facts, but they fitted. Any other system would have meant the trouble with the stations all over again, but worse and more expensive. And now maybe even the dangers of the stations could be ended. A tiny, international missile supply on the Moon wouldn't be enough to ruin the Earth, but it could knock out any station that tried to begin aggressive actions. In time, the people might realize the value of space without its dangers.

  "But colonies in five years—" Jim began doubtfully.

  "Not in five years! Now! When we leave here six weeks from now, five men are going to stay and work on the base for the next trip. And more will stay then, and so on. We'll have a hundred men based here in a year, growing their own air and part of their food in tanks."

  And finally some enthusiasm began to hit Jim as he listened and discussed. It wouldn't be easy. At first, the scientific value of the trips would have to pay the way, togedier with what could be made from films, lectures and every other means that could be handled by a company Jonas was planning. Building ships that could use Earth's air as a brake to slow them for a return to the station would help to cut down the huge cost enormously. And already one of the chemists was laying out a program to have fuel plants working by solar energy and using materials—fortunately all common basic ones—within the next five years. Once that was done, the trips would be cheap enough for the colony to begin a true growth.

  "And men will come out here, Jim," Jonas finished. "What they will do and how they'll live will remain for the future, just as it did when America was first settled. But somehow, this world won't be useless when it's really opened up. I've been thinking of settling down here myself."

  They were still discussing it as they went down from the rocket and out onto the plain below. Then Jim saw Nora heading toward him, and turned toward her. She began running as she recognized him, calling over the radio in her suit.

  "Freddy's conscious, Jim. He's going to be all right!"

  The report was spreading all over a minute later. Freddy had sat up finally, and his mind had been clear, though he was still terribly weak. He'd managed to say hello to his father over the radio. It would still be several days before he could have company, but he was going to recover.

  Jim felt the final weight lift from him as he realized that the rush and drive of the trip hadn't been wasted. Then he looked around at the unfamiliar landscape around him. Nothing that could get men here would have been a waste, he decided.

  Men hadn't even begun to explore it yet. That would start in the six weeks remaining before their return, and would go on for years as they learned to know this new world. But already it didn't seem so strange. Jim wondered whether any world would seem strange very long to the men who would go out to them. They wouldn't stop here; there was the cloud-wrapped mystery of Venus and the proof of some kind of life on Mars to drive them on. In the future to come, there might be no limits to the places and worlds men might find.

  But for now, this was enough.

  Then he grinned and glanced down at Nora.

  "We'll have to spend the next five years piloting for others, I guess," he told her. "But after that, maybe Freddy will be ready to take over. This wouldn't be a bad place to settle down, do you think?"

  She smiled back at him. "No, Jim. I can't think of a better place."

  They stood quietly then, studying the new world that was to be their home.

  nbsp; Lester Del Rey, Mission to the Moon