Richard M. Elam

“ As the ship moved strongly into Mercury’s gravitation field, Bart lined the automatic pilot up with the tiny speck on the rocky world below that was the Dennis Meteor. Then he and Steve strapped down on their protective couches for the grueling landing.
Steve felt as though his chest were crushed under the rapid deceleration. It was the effect of a swiftly dropping elevator multiplied hundreds of times as the Comet’s forward jets thrust against Mercury’s crust to brake the hurtling speed. Steve finally blacked out; he always did. ”

“ EXPEDITION PLUTO
“The lieutenant doesn’t think you’ve got your mind on navigation, Rob,” Duff Ford was saying, as he and Rob Allison stood before a port of the rocket ship Rigel looking out over the sea of space.
“Does it show that much?” the lean young spaceman answered.
“We’ll find him, Rob,” the redhead answered. “Stop eating your heart out.”
“You never knew Jim Hawley, did you, Duff?” Rob asked.
“No, but from what I’ve heard of him, he’s quite a guy. Always smiling and bursting with friendliness.” ”

“ Six men battling the greatest pack of energy ever faced by mankind! It was almost like tempting fate, Rob thought; like facing a mechanized army with only a club for a weapon. But Rob had confidence in the scientists of this day and their devastating brain child, the cosmic ray bomb.
Rob met his crew in the general’s office. He silently studied the young men, selected as the best in their field, who would be entrusted with the lives of three billion people. ”

“ Jim’s blood chilled, but he acted promptly, darting forward and scrambling down the incline after the helpless man. The unicorn rushed up the slope, his head lowered and his frightening ivory horn poised for attack.
Mr. Benjamin cried out and barely squirmed out of the way of the charging animal. The force of the unicorn’s thrust caused him to bury his sharp horn to the ground. He withdrew it with a grunt of fury and shook black earth from the glossy white tip. ”

“ Without the ladder to hamper them they could be more furtive in their movements. They dodged lithely around towering chunks of light-colored lunarite and darker lunabase. The rock formations looked like petrified sponges jutting up out of a dried-up sea bottom. When the two had to go out in the open, they sprinted toward the next place of cover. Since hoarfrost continued to gather on their suits, they constantly brushed it off. A moving white figure even in the deep shadows might be noticed by anyone in the Dog Star.
Now only a few hundred feet separated Rock and Shep from the space ship. ”

“ At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light, far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip among the stars. ”

“ As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps. ”

“ Franz had visited. The underjets threw out pencils of braking power to check the plunge of the space ship.
Finally the Centaurus touched down on its tail fins and then Spacemaster Brigger said to Rob, “It’s all yours now, Allison.”
Looking out over the hoary wilderness, completely airless because of the little world’s inability to retain an atmosphere, Rob felt suddenly incompetent. Only now did he realize fully his youthful inexperience. It was one thing to be an idle witness on a journey; it was another to be in charge of a crew of men. ”

“ He and his friends would be indebted to Kalmus for years to come for their share in the venture. They would either have to slave at the space station again, and eat humble crow, or try to find other jobs back on Earth.
But this wasn’t all of the story. A failure would close off for all time the hope that had lived in him ever since he had known of his father’s disappearance. He would have to resign himself to the thought that his father and his ship would speed along with its lifeless cargo to the ends of the universe seemingly, never to be recovered. ”

“ Jim said. “Do you think they’ll be any good to us?”
“They’ll have to be, Jim,” Rob answered grimly. “They’re all we have.”
Jim looked at his stalwart young friend in admiration. “You and Grant are all right, Rob. Not many men would risk their careers on an old man’s whims. Aren’t you scared—just a little bit?”
“I’m plenty scared,” Rob told him, with a nervous smile. “I’m only a subofficer of five months, and here I am in charge of an expedition. Don’t think that isn’t frightening. In a sense, the lives of all men aboard the ship will be in my hands after we land.” ”

“ When this was over, he knew the Hercules had climbed above the bulk of Earth’s atmosphere and was leveling off on a horizontal curve from the planet’s surface. The rotation of the Earth would give the spaceship a final boost into the deeps.
When Jim’s stomach quieted, he unbuckled and attempted to get to his feet. The motion sent him flying up into the air! It then struck him that he had forgotten about the weightlessness of space. Some ships had artificial gravity in them; but because the Hercules was chiefly a pleasure ship, the tourists preferred to “rough it.” ”

“ As the countless stars of black space trooped slowly past in an endless caravan, the boy was still haunted by the nightmare of last week. That nightmare could yet end forever his dreams of a space pilot’s career. Toby was looking in the direction of the mist-covered globe, five thousand miles away, which was Earth. The space station was a celestial lookout, a scientific laboratory, and a harbor for space-going rockets.
“What’re you thinking, Toby?” asked Lou Penner, his roommate.
“I’m wondering if I should take Dr. Shepard and Deb to Luna,” Toby answered. ”

“ Some day—when we make contact—all must surely believe.
Earth is a planet of many races and different political groups. Although an effort is being made for co-operation through an organization called United Nations (not to be confused with United States) , there is no real, enforceable unity among the countries of Earth. The planet has not even advanced to the point of a common tongue! Without being able to speak the same language, there is too much opportunity for misunderstanding, and this must be one of the causes of the deplorable bloodshed this planet has gone through in its history. ”

“ The ship was actually overtaking the miniature world even though it was circling the sun at a rapid thirty miles a second.
On the fifth day away from Earth, the Condon Comet reached its apogee, the farthest point of its orbit from the mother planet. It was “behind” the sun now, the dominant ball eclipsing the Earth. By now Mercury had grown hugely, a big pebbly world that literally shimmered with the frightening heat that poured down upon it. It was a startling sight, halved into hemispheres of darkness and extreme brilliance. ”

“ Reaching Point Luna, the car was stopped and the tourists got out to look over the view. The space harbor was only a miniature tongue of land beyond the vast spread of canyon behind them. Babe pointed out the Great Crimson Desert in the distance, which looked to Jim like a sea of fire as the heat waves rose from it up into the white sky. Jim thought it odd, not seeing a sun up there. He knew the planet was forever shut off from any view of the outer magnificent solar system because of its dense atmosphere. ”

“ When they have utilized the cosmic rays of space and understand that a force field will permit a flyer to spin and soar with his craft, without distress of any kind, then they will have unlocked the key to what they believe to be a dark mystery.
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Their attempts to overtake us in their jet craft have been laughable. I often wonder what they would do if we should suddenly stop and dare them to approach closer. Should they fire on us, it would undoubtedly fill them with fear and dismay to see their shots bounce harmlessly off our force field. ”

“ It was as if the general himself were rallying courage. “There is a giant radioactive cloud approaching the solar system from outer space at a terrific speed. The cloud covers an area roughly as big as Jupiter. Scientists have been plotting its trajectory with electronic instruments for a long time, and there is no doubt but that it will collide with the system if nothing is done about it. Life, of course, would be wiped out completely.”
Rob felt the horror of the statement clear to the marrow of his bones. ”

“ Merrill felt that the four remaining less-experienced men of his original crew of nineteen could not successfully bring the ship back to port. “So close to my dream of a satellite hospital and yet so far,” were his unhappy words. “And yet we shall try with all our might, my dear, to come home. This treasure of ours must not go to waste. There is so much good that it can do.” ”

“ Marsh said into the helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. ”

“ For days and days, nothing seemed to change in the endless depths of black space as the Rigel sped toward Pluto. There were the same monotonous patterns of stardust and the eternally broad sweep of the Milky Way and other remote galaxies. Only the distant planets grew and shrank in size. As the space ship neared Neptune, the big green world enlarged importantly. Rob and Duff, in an off-duty hour, watched the frigid, lonely planet. ”

“ I can’t imagine a person who calls himself a spaceman and takes the oath of allegiance to duty letting petty interests take first place in an operation as important as this. I don’t believe you have realized yet that the future of life itself on Earth depends on the success of this flight.”
For a moment Lieutenant Swenson seemed to have run out of steam as his big chest gasped for breath. Clay was so overcome he stood with lips trembling and eyes smarting. Rob suspected this was perhaps the first real dressing-down he had had in his life, something that probably his own father had never done. ”

“ Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.” ”

“ The radio commentators calmly informed the world that it was merely a large meteor burning itself up in the atmosphere. (The stubborn refusal of Earthmen to accept our existence continually baffles me.)
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From what I have heard these radio spokesmen say, Earthmen who believe in us seem to regard us with a sort of awe. They rightly consider us much farther advanced than themselves, but you should hear the outlandish descriptions some have given us. And after the weird appearance they present to us, too!
I have judged the people of Earth to be excitable and unpredictable. ”

“ And yet Rob knew he must consider his other crewmen. If Clay were unreliable, what right had he to risk their lives just to give a mixed-up young fellow another chance? Rob didn’t know what to do, so he looked to his friends for advice. He resolved to act on their judgment, since they were older men. Rob caught Lieutenant Swenson’s eye. To his wordless inquiry, the navigator-radiation officer nodded. Lieutenant Fox did the same. The silent vote had given the impetuous Clay Gerard another chance, and for some reason Rob was glad that it had come out this way. ”

“ The first hurdle had been successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude 200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple. ”

“ Rob lost no time in getting to the set and pouring out the happy tidings to General Forester on Luna.
Later Rob learned of the repercussions: “The people in most quarters are stunned to know what could have happened to them,” the Space Command officer told him. “But all danger of panic is over. People are leaving the streets and going back to their homes and loved ones—and to church. It’s a grand victory, Rob, your greatest of all!”
“It’s not my victory, general,” Rob replied. “It belongs equally to the men with me—Fox, Swenson, Olney, Goode, and Gerard. They’re great guys, sir, all of them.” ”

“ FLIGHT OF THE CENTAURUS
Spacemaster Brigger came into the navigation compartment of the Centaurus, which was thrusting into the starry night of space far beyond Saturn. Rob Allison, junior officer, looked up from the desk where he sat, wondering at the frown on the skipper’s face.
“It’s just as I feared, Allison,” Mr. Brigger said gravely. “The men are sorry they signed on for Titania and are grumbling already. They think they’ll be ridiculed when they get back.” ”

“ Jim saw that only a single lever was used to control the cable car. There was a radio set for contact with the space harbor if this were necessary.
Babe turned on the ignition and shoved the lever. The car began gliding over the ground toward the edge of the precipice. “A child can run this,” he said. “One jet behind to push us forward, one in front to slow us down.”
Jim felt his knees go weak in tingling anticipation as the car swung out into empty space, with only its slender overhead cable as a support for forty people. Babe presently let Jim try the control lever. ”