YOUNG READERS
Science Fiction Stories
By RICHARD M. ELAM
ILLUSTRATED BY
VICTOR PREZIO
Publishers GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC. New York
© 1957 by
LANTERN PRESS, INC.
By arrangement with Lantern Press, Inc.
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN CANADA BY
GEORGE J. MC LEOD, LIMITED, TORONTO, ONTARIO
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
THE YOUNG TRAVELERS
OF TOMORROW
CONTENTS
[Beth and the Twilight Star] 13 [Gib Takes a Space Test] 28 [The Space Mail Run] 39 [All Aboard for Space] 55 [Wheel in the Sky] 69 [Danger on the Ice Canal] 83 [Cargo for Callisto] 95 [The Big Show on Titan] 107 [Adventure on the Sun’s Doorstep] 119 [The Flying Mountain] 132 [Castaways in Space] 144 [The Big Space Ball Game] 158 [Paper Treasure for Mars] 171
ILLUSTRATIONS
[She saw a strange land unfolding before her eyes] 22 [Everyone was told to buckle himself to the rail by a short length of cord] 62 [The tornado bomb was on its way, speeding hundreds of miles a second Earthward] 81 [He saw her flinging her arms and legs about like a drowning swimmer] 128 [Benasco was seated on the floor like a child with a new scrapbook] 187
YOUNG READERS
Science Fiction Stories
BETH AND THE TWILIGHT STAR
Beth Harrison and her father had driven into the desert to look for dead branches of “jumping cactus,” which were used in making lamps for Mr. Harrison’s tourist shop in Tucson. He and Beth had just gotten out of the station wagon and were gazing up a slope of bristly cacti.
“This looks like a good place, Daddy,” Beth said.
Mr. Harrison nodded. “We’ll have to hurry, though. It’s getting late.”
They started up the sandy slope carrying straw market bags that would hold their gleanings.
“Maybe we’ll see some Flying Saucers,” Beth said half-jokingly. “Someone thought he saw one out here the other day.”
Her father grinned. “Flying Saucers indeed! You and that lively imagination of yours, Beth!”
They set to work searching for dead branches. They found a few good specimens. But they were not enough to suit Beth and she decided to broaden the search. She went over the slope and up and down another, and before long her roaming carried her out of sight of her father.
Amidst the stunning colors of the sunset, Beth could make out a lone star—Sirius—the brightest true star in all the sky. It reminded her of a pearl glowing in the heavens.
Presently Beth had a bag full of cactus wood for the lamp shop. She was about to return to her father when suddenly she saw something ahead that she had not noticed before. Almost hidden within a dense thicket of smoky green paloverde was a shiny surface that reflected the dying sun’s rays. Her imagination stirred, Beth decided to investigate.
She put down her bag and made her way into the thicket. As she moved carefully through the thorns, she found some of the branches pushed aside as if someone had used this path before. She was almost through when she tripped and fell head-first. Her forehead bumped against an unyielding branch, causing her to see more than one star this time.
She didn’t know how long she lay on the ground half-stunned before she got to her feet. There was a painful bruise on her forehead, but her curiosity was still strong and she went on. The shiny surface turned out to be a wall as smooth and glossy as steel.
“Jeepers!” Beth thought. “What can it be?”
She reached out to touch the wall. Before she could do so, a door opened in the wall.
The first thing she noticed beyond was a soft yellow light filling a handsome room. Feeling like Alice on the threshold of Wonderland, she stepped inside, more thrilled than afraid.
She heard a sighing behind her and saw the door closing shut. Only then did she become frightened. She beat against the wall, wishing that she had not been so rash as to venture into such a strange place.
She heard a voice say, “That will not help.”
Beth turned and saw a girl of about her own age standing on a richly-carpeted platform across the room. The odd unearthliness of the girl struck Beth immediately. She was pretty and her skin was milky white. Her costume seemed to be of a blue phosphorescent material, as did her shoes. Her short hair was almost as red as glowing coals.
“Wh—who are you?” Beth stammered.
“I am Linnia,” the girl replied in a voice that sounded almost as if she were singing. “You are Beth.”
“Yes,” Beth replied in amazement, “but how did you—?”
“I can read your mind.”
Beth gulped. “You can?”
“Come over and sit down,” Linnia said. “We shall talk.”
She sat in a nearby chair that seemed to be made of steel matchsticks, it looked so frail. Beth sat in the chair opposite and found that it was very sturdy.
“You are thinking that I look very strange to you,” Linnia said. “You seem strange to me too, but that is because we are of different worlds.”
Beth gulped again. “D—different worlds?”
Suddenly the yellow light in the room changed to a pulsing orange. Linnia straightened up quickly. “That is the signal,” she spoke. “I did not expect it so soon. We must hurry and prepare ourselves!”
Beth started asking questions, but Linnia said not now. Beth found herself following the girl across the room to a row of couches. Beth lay down on one and somehow knew exactly what she was to do. She guessed that Linnia was putting the thoughts into her head. She lifted the straps that hung at the sides and buckled them across her body.
The couch was soft as a cloud and Beth was thinking how much she would like to have a bed like this when all at once she felt herself sinking deeply into the cushion as if a great hand were thrusting her down. For several moments she was as giddy as if she were riding the roller-coaster at the carnival. Then finally her breath came back and she felt herself rise to the top of the cushion again.
“We can get up,” she heard Linnia say. “We’re coasting now.”
They unbuckled their straps and rose to their feet. Linnia walked over to the wall, pressed a button, and a blind rolled back, revealing a long window.
“Look,” Linnia said.
Beth joined her and looked out the window. Her heart fairly rose into her throat. She was up in the sky, far up in the sky! Through a veil of clouds beneath she could see the curve of the earth itself!
Beth seized Linnia by the arm. “Jeepers, what’s going on! Where are you taking me?”
Linnia pointed to the white beacon of Sirius in the blue-black sky.
“You’re from Sirius?” Beth asked in amazement.
“Yes, from Tata Moori, one of its planets. Our work on earth is through for right now and my father and I are returning home to make a report.”
Linnia went on to say that her father’s space ship was only one of many which were studying the earth to see how the people here lived. Her father’s assignment had been to make an analysis of the soil. The visitors intended no harm and in time they planned to meet the people of earth face to face.
“Well, I have already met you,” Beth said boldly, “and I’m ready to go back!”
Linnia shook her flame-topped head. “We tried to keep our ship hidden, but you found it, Beth, and so there is nothing to do but take you back with us for awhile. When you came close, the electric eye opened the door and let you inside before it was time for any earth person to see one of our ships.”
“But my father and mother,” Beth said desperately, “and my friends! They’ll be worried to death! You must not take me, Linnia! Please, isn’t there something you can do?”
Linnia studied Beth’s pleading face. Then she replied, “I’ll talk to my father. He’s busy running the ship, but I’ll do what I can for you. While I’m gone, you can see what it’s like on our world by pushing the button on that cabinet against the wall. Father and I look at the film sometimes to keep from getting homesick.”
Beth was in no mood for looking at pictures. She was feeling worse by the minute as she considered what it would be like to be parted from her family and friends. As she sat in the chair, dreading and wondering, suddenly it became too much for her and she began to cry.
“Jeepers, why did I ever wander off from Daddy?” she moaned.
The tears made her feel better and presently she was calm enough to go over to the cabinet and turn it on. A large screen brightened and she saw a strange land unfolding before her eyes.
There were winding highways raised into the sky and skyscrapers like tall crystal columns. She saw motorcars of tear-drop design and helicopters filling the air. The people looked much like Linnia, with phosphorescent clothing, and all had hair as flaming red as Linnia’s own.
She saw a strange land unfolding before her eyes
Yes, Tata Moori looked like an exciting place to visit, but it was not a visit Beth would want to make without another person from her own planet. As she thought about her predicament, she began to be scared again and the tears filled her eyes once more. Why, Sirius was trillions of miles from Earth!
She went to the window. The dwindling earth was becoming a green ball against the black deeps of space. The stars were dazzling and seemed as countless as the sands of the seashore. The view made Beth terribly homesick.
Finally Linnia returned.
Beth looked at her anxiously, trying to read her fate in the foreign girl’s eyes.
“What did your father say?” Beth asked, with fluttering heart. “Did he say he’d take me back? Please tell me he did!”
Linnia smiled. “Yes, Beth. He said that we are not supposed to take younger persons to Tata Moori. He was angry with me for not telling him you were aboard, but I told him you came in just before we blasted off.”
“Gee, I’m so relieved!” Beth said happily. “I don’t mean I wouldn’t like your company, Linnia, but you know how it is.”
“Yes, I know,” Linnia replied wistfully. “I have missed my mother and friends too. I had to take my brother’s place on this trip when he became sick. You see, everyone on Tata Moori learns science when they are very young.”
“I’ve been wondering how it is that you speak English, Linnia.”
“We keep tuned in on your radio and television,” Linnia answered. “That’s how we learned your language and so many other things about you.”
“You people seem to be ahead of us in progress,” Beth said. “I believe there is much we can learn from you.”
“We can learn much from you too,” Linnia spoke. “I hope the people of our planets are permitted to meet very soon.”
The girls had to belt down on their couches again because of the mounting speed at which they were returning to earth. Beth felt herself sinking deeply into her cushion once more and she grew breathless again. Minutes later, the ship stopped moving.
Beth hurriedly unbuckled and ran over to the window. Through a break in the paloverde thicket she could see her father’s station wagon parked at the roadside. She was back at the same place she had started from.
“Thank goodness!” she breathed.
Linnia walked with her to the outer door.
“My father said he’d like to have met you,” Linnia said, “but he is too busy preparing for our blast off again. We must hurry because we are behind schedule. Before you leave, Beth, Father has said that you must promise never to speak a word about all this to anyone. I have searched your mind and I know you to be honest.”
Beth was disappointed that she could not make known her fabulous journey, but she promised that she would never tell.
Linnia waved her hand at the door and the electric eye opened it.
“Goodbye, Beth,” Linnia said.
“Goodbye, Linnia.”
Beth heard the sighing of the door as it closed behind her.
Suddenly her head began aching and she remembered the fall she had taken earlier. As she made her way out of the thicket, she began to have a queer feeling about her adventure. It made her wonder if perhaps she might not have been unconscious and imagined the whole thing.
When she reached the car, her father said with some concern, “You were gone so long I started to come for you, Beth. What happened to your forehead?”
She told him about her fall but did not mention the space ship.
“Did you see something land a few minutes ago, Daddy?” Beth asked.
Mr. Harrison grinned. “You mean, maybe, a Flying Saucer? No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Are you sure your imagination isn’t working overtime again, Beth?”
As they were about to get into the car, Beth saw a dark object in the distance rise from the ground and move off into the deepening twilight. She was certain she did not imagine this.
“You saw that, didn’t you, Daddy?” Beth asked.
Mr. Harrison nodded. “Probably a hawk. Hmm, it looks like it’s heading right for the Evening Star, doesn’t it?”
Beth gazed at the brilliant light of Sirius, gorgeously bright now with darkness closing in.
“I wish I knew if it really was,” Beth murmured.
GIB TAKES A SPACE TEST
Gib Bromfield was nine, and the thing he wanted to do most was to make a flight into space. A colony on the Moon had already been started for scientific research, and a huge man-made space platform circled the Earth once every twenty-four hours.
“I want to go back to the Moon with you, Father,” Gib would plead every time Mr. Bromfield came home on a furlough.
“I’m afraid you’re still a little young, Gib,” his father would reply. “Some day you will be able to go out into space with me, but not yet.”
Mr. Bromfield was a construction engineer, and he was helping to build a big spaceport on the Moon. He came home to see his family every six months. Each time he returned, Gib couldn’t wait to meet him at the front door of their prefabricated home.
Gib would shake hands with him like a man and take his bags from him. Then he would step back and admire the tall, handsome man in the glossy black boots and gray uniform of the Space Service. By this time, Mother usually came running up, followed by Sandra, Gib’s little sister.
On Mr. Bromfield’s latest visit, Gib waited until the usual family talk had subsided before he started asking his father about his recent adventures. After Father had brought him up to date, Gib asked the same question he always asked:
“Father, my I go back with you this time for a short visit—just a short one?”
Mr. Bromfield smiled and rumpled Gib’s blond hair. “It’s not the time element, Gib,” he said patiently. “It’s the rigors of space itself, which are much rougher than Captain Rocket on TV would have us believe.”
Gib’s face fell. He had hoped that this time his father would give in and let him go back. Mr. Bromfield could see that his son was disappointed. He stared at Gib thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke again.
“All right, Gib, I’ll put you through S.Q.T. If you pass it and still want to go spaceward, I’ll take you.”
“Gee, do you mean that?” Gib burst out.
He was so excited he didn’t know what to do. Gib had never had any doubt that he would pass the S.Q.T.—the Space Qualification Test—that all those who go spaceward must take.
Mr. Bromfield went immediately to the video-phone and put through a call to S.Q.T., having them place Gib’s name on the space test list.
“Thanks, Father!” Gib said excitedly. “At last I’ll be going spaceward!”
“We’ll see,” Mr. Bromfield replied soberly.
Gib spent the next afternoon on the first part of the test, which was a complete physical examination.
“It didn’t hurt the tiniest bit,” Gib joked with his father that night. “If all the parts of the test are as easy as this first one, I won’t have any trouble.”
Mr. Bromfield did not say anything, but he smiled to himself as though he knew something that Gib did not know.
Gib and his father took the elevated expressway to the S.Q.T. center early the next morning in their atom-powered Johnson Superjet. The final portions of Gib’s test would be covered today.
The first part was familiarity with the space suit. In company with about fifty other candidates, Gib was given a supply of clothing. Then everyone was shown how to zip up their thickly insulated suits in front. Next, an attendant snapped metal cylinders to their shoulders and screwed the flexible tubing into valves on their suits. Last to be put on were helmets of light metal that had a darkened glass in front so that the wearer could look out.
“Now, all of you turn the little black knob on your chests,” the tester said. His voice sounded muffled to Gib because of the helmet he wore.
Gib turned his knob and felt his suit blowing up like a balloon as air flowed in from the oxygen tanks.
“This is how you would be dressed for a walk on the Moon,” the tester told them. “Now I want all of you to walk into the next room.”
As Gib went into the room with the others, he was thinking how easy the test had been up until now. And what fun it was taking the very tests that Captain Rocket himself must have taken at one time! He thought his father was surely mistaken for having doubted his ability to pass the S.Q.T.
The tester left the room and shut the door. In a few moments Gib began to have a strange sensation. He was feeling lighter and lighter, and the others with him were beginning to float right off the floor!
Gib struggled frantically as he felt himself go off balance. Each movement he made, however, shot him off at swift, crazy angles. He felt himself sweating with fear, and for the first time he was believing that maybe the S.Q.T. wasn’t going to be so easy after all.
It seemed as if he had the strength of a Samson, but it was a strength he could not control. A simple kick sent him hurtling across the room toward the wall! He tried to brake himself, but nothing he did would stop him. He crashed headlong into the wall. It shook him up a little, but he was not hurt. He saw that the wall was thickly padded.
After about fifteen minutes of helplessness, Gib felt himself getting heavier again and saw his companions drop to the floor in normal position. The tester came in with some doctors. The doctors looked over each candidate and asked many questions. Gib was still dazed and wasn’t sure of the answers he gave.
When the doctors were through, the tester explained what had happened: “This room was de-gravitized, which means the Earth’s gravity in here was cut off by mechanical means. It’s the same condition you will find in a space ship when the gravity plates are turned off. From the looks of some of you, this experience was something of a shock. But the final test will be even rougher. Anybody who wants to drop out now may do so.”
Gib saw that about a third of the candidates had had enough. Gib was still giddy himself and started to join them. He was disappointed in the harshness of “zero-gravity.” It had always looked so simple to him the way that Captain Rocket “swam” about in his rocket flyer.
Gib did not want his father to think him a quitter, though, and decided to stick out the test to the end. When his turn came, he was led into a huge room by himself and up to a queer-looking machine. It resembled one of the thrill rides at a carnival, the one that whirls you round and round like a ball on the end of a string. Gib entered a tiny cabin at the end of the large swinging arm and sat down in a thick foam-rubber reclining chair.
As he was strapped down, the tester said to him, “This is called the ‘Centrifuge,’ son, and it simulates the blast-off from Earth in a rocket ship. You appear to be a little young to be taking it, so if you’ve had enough just yank that lever in front of you and we’ll stop the machine.”
“I—I will,” Gib replied, getting scared already.
He got more scared as all sorts of instruments were strapped to him. The tester explained that these were to record his reactions. As the door was closed on him. Gib had a trapped feeling. Then he composed himself and waited for the worst, telling himself that a spaceman must be brave.
Presently he felt the cabin begin to move, slowly at first. This much was fun, Gib thought, just like the carnival ride. As the cabin picked up speed, it was even more thrilling. But then as the speed increased still more, Gib began to lose his enjoyment.
Faster and faster he went, and Gib was crushed deeply into the chair cushion. He felt his cheeks draw back from his teeth, the corners of his eyes making him squint. There was heavy pressure on his chest, as if an elephant were standing on him. His breath hung in his throat and he saw strange colors and darting forms before his eyes.
He stood the agonizing effect as long as he could, and then his frightfully heavy hand crept unsteadily toward the lever in front of him and jerked it.
The cabin began losing speed and finally stopped. Gib saw a blurred image open the door and offer his hand. As he stumbled out, his head feeling big as a watermelon, Gib vaguely remembered hearing the tester say:
“You needn’t feel badly about this, son. You almost lasted it out. Come back in another year or two and then I think you’ll be able to pass.”
Gib still wasn’t quite himself as he met his father in the waiting room. He was quivering all over, and his dad wouldn’t quite come into focus.
“I flunked the test, Father,” Gib told him.
“It sounds to me as if you’re glad you did,” Mr. Bromfield replied, with a chuckle. “I was afraid it might be too rough for you, son, but I knew there was no other way to show you that space travel isn’t as easy as the comic books make out.”
“I’ll try again next year,” Gib said, “or the year after that, anyway. That’s what the tester told me.”
“I’m sure you’ll be ready then,” Mr. Bromfield replied. “Now, what do you say we go home? Captain Rocket is almost due on TV.”
THE SPACE MAIL RUN
The way he felt now, Jerry Welsh was almost sorry he had left Earth. The Moonship landing seemed to be crushing the very life out of him, although he lay flat on a couch to ease the strain.
Jerry turned his head toward his father, who was strapped down like himself, and suffering too. The craft was under its own control, for no human could withstand the rocket’s present speed and still be able to steer in for a landing.
Capt. Welsh was on his bi-weekly mail run to Luna, the Moon, and for the first time in ten years of service he had a passenger—his own twelve-year-old son.
At last Jerry felt a hard jolt under him. He knew the rocket’s tail fins had finally touched ground. Jerry unstrapped himself with rubbery fingers and sat up. Then he tried to stand, but flopped down again.
“Wow, I feel giddy!” he groaned.
His father laughed. “You’ll get your bearings presently, Son.”
How long Jerry had waited to make this space mail run with his father! Then finally last year, Capt. Welsh had said that Jerry could go with him when he became twelve, as he was especially husky and strong for his age.
But now that the great moment had come at last, Jerry wasn’t sure he was enjoying it as he had expected, for he had found space so vast, so dark, and so frightening.
“Do you still want to be a spaceman, Jerry?” his dad asked suddenly, as though Jerry had spoken his thoughts aloud.
“I—I think so, Dad,” he replied hesitantly.
“I see you’re doubtful, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh said. “I won’t put you on the spot so early.”
They climbed into space gear—electrically-heated suits and clear plastic helmets fitted with radios. Lastly they donned oxygen tanks and flooded their suits with the life-sustaining gas.
They gathered up the mail sacks and climbed down the ladder to the ground, heading for the largest of a group of buildings which made up Moonhaven, center of Earthmen’s activity on the airless planet.
The stars burned fantastically bright overhead. Traces of frost topped the distant Lunar Alps. It was incredibly cold out here, for the Moon was in its two-week period of night.
Capt. Welsh got a receipt for the largest mail bag, and then he and Jerry went out a rear door of the building carrying the rest. An atom-powered mail car awaited them. It had an open top and huge wheels that looked like saw-toothed gears.
“Climb aboard the Moon jeep, Jerry,” his father said. “We’ve got ten mail deliveries to make.”
Inside, Capt. Welsh pulled down a section of the dash panel revealing a map. “Here’s a map of our route. There aren’t many mail stops on the Moon yet, but they are all important.”
“And the mail must go through!” Jerry added.
Capt. Welsh nodded soberly. “That’s the first law, Jerry.”
As they moved off Jerry saw the big friendly globe of Earth hanging like a green jewel halfway up the jet black sky. He wondered what his mother and baby sister were doing this moment a quarter of a million miles away.
Capt. Welsh showed Jerry how to run the jeep. Jerry found this easy for he had already had a course in mechanics in preparation for his future career as a space man. But sometime later their peaceful ride was interrupted when Capt. Welsh suddenly leaned over and grabbed the wheel.
Jerry was thrown to the side as the car swerved. The vehicle straightened out and slammed to a halt as his father controlled the wheel and applied the brakes.
“What happened?” Jerry breathed, his heart pounding.
His father pointed behind them. “Look.”
Jerry turned and saw the edge of a treacherous ditch running right across the roadway where they would have passed over. The gorge was several feet wide.
“I didn’t even see it,” Jerry murmured, sick with fear at what might have happened.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been shaken on this journey. It made him wonder as he had once before if he had what it took to be a space man, or if this adventure would make him decide never to leave the atmosphere of Earth again.
“Scared?” his father asked. Jerry nodded.
“Don’t worry. I was too for a moment.”
“You were?” Jerry asked with surprise.
“Fear was given to man, so he could save himself from danger, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh said. “Don’t be ashamed of it. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of unless you let it get the best of you. Never forget that.”
They arrived at their first delivery point, an engineering project on a plateau surrounded by mountains. There were the foundations of great buildings to come, constructed of hard Lunar granite.
The space-suited figures came running when they recognized Capt. Welsh and his mail car. Jerry marveled how the formerly stern expressions of the workmen brightened when the foreman handed mail out to them.
“It must be fun bringing mail to men who are so far from their homes and families,” Jerry said when they were on their way again.
“I guess that’s why I’ve put up with the lonely hours of seeing nothing but stardust for the past ten years,” Capt. Welsh answered. “But I love it, Son, and I wouldn’t trade jobs with any man.”
Their next delivery site was a cavern where men were prospecting for uranium. They too were overjoyed at receiving messages from home. The jeep rolled on from there to a huge plain which was being prepared for a future spaceport. Capt. Welsh and his helper dropped off another mail sack and then were on their way again. Some hours later, all but two deliveries had been made.
“Next stop is the astronomy observatory,” Capt. Welsh told Jerry.
They crawled over sandy hills that taxed the gripping power of their spiked wheels, wound in and out of towering buttresses of black basalt, and bored through natural tunnels like a pair of human moles. Then the observatory came into view.
A smiling little scientist with thick glasses signed for the mail at the door. He invited Jerry to come back and visit the place before he returned to Earth.
“You haven’t seen anything until you look through their great telescope,” Capt. Welsh told Jerry as they drove off.
“What’s our last stop?” Jerry wanted to know.
“A geology camp where some scientists are digging into ancient rocks,” his father said. “It’s only about seven miles away, but the going will be a little rough before we get there. It’s a good thing it’s our last stop because we don’t have any too much oxygen left in our shoulder tanks. I usually don’t take this long on a mail run.”
The roadway carried them through a narrow pass with a high hill of loose rock on one side and a sloping embankment on the other. Jerry’s first warning of trouble came when he was flung suddenly forward. He heard the sickening drag of the wheels as his father’s boot hit the brakes. Just ahead of them he saw a cascade of rocks sliding down the hill.
The next moment Jerry felt an even harder blow as the jeep was grazed by one of the large boulders. The small car was swept out of the roadway like a toy and rammed against a pillar at the cliff edge.
Jerry screamed in fear as he felt himself being thrown out of the car. He struck the ground hard and began rolling head over heels down the precipice.
When the numbing shock of his fall had worn off, Jerry climbed dazedly to his feet and looked up the slope down which he had been thrown.
“Dad!” he cried. He slipped and scrambled up the incline in reckless haste. He found Capt. Welsh sprawled unconscious just below the upper brink of the precipice. Jerry knelt and looked into his face through the clear plastic helmet. His father’s eyes were closed and there was an ugly bruise on his forehead where it must have struck the helmet in his fall.
“What am I going to do?” Jerry groaned aloud.
He himself would have to make the decisions and carry them through if the two of them were to survive. It was a shocking thought. Then it came to him what his father had said about fear: a person need never be ashamed of fear so long as it was not permitted to get the upper hand.
Jerry pulled his father up onto the roadway and tried to bring him around, but without result. Jerry examined the jeep. One side was badly smashed, but the engine still appeared sound. The car was tipped over against the rock column. Jerry was thankful that the jeep was only one-sixth of its Earth-weight on the moon. It was a tremendous effort but he finally righted the car and got it back on the road.
He jumped into the front seat and started the engine. It sputtered, then hummed into activity! Jerry studied the map on the panel. He located their present position by the giant crater, Plato, at his distant right. Then he traced the winding route leading to the geology camp. He was closer to the camp than the observatory, but ahead lay a rugged route, one with which Jerry was totally unfamiliar. He got out and went back to where Capt. Welsh lay.
“Which way should I go, Dad, ahead or back?” he asked helplessly, just as though his father were able to answer him.
Something told him that Capt. Welsh would want him to go ahead—to finish the mail run that had never missed a round in ten years. Jerry got his father into the back seat, then gunned the jeep and struck off into the unknown ahead.
He was thankful for the old worn trail that led the way for him. It presently carried him through a gloomy valley. Jerry switched on his headlights, but the twin spears of brightness gave him little comfort in the spooky place. Grotesque rock columns rose like menacing ghosts on both sides of him.
At last he was out in the open again. The road led him around the steep ledge of a yawning crater, evidently caused by a huge crashing fireball from outer space.
Jerry carefully guided the jeep along the dangerous cliff. If one of his wheels should slip over the side, it would be a fall to frightful death a hundred feet straight down. At last even this peril was past, and Jerry drove up a gradual incline over bare rock to a bluff that overlooked the distant land for many miles.
“The camp!” he said joyfully. “That’s it below—only a few miles away!”
He followed a curve that swept onto the plain below. When he was on a level again, it seemed that all his troubles were over. He felt better by the moment as he drove closer and closer to his destination.
Then, without warning, his wheels began to bog down in a pumice mire. His heart did a flip-flop and he checked the map. He saw a warning to drivers to avoid this spot. In his overconfidence, he had blundered right into it!
He gave the little jeep full power. It jerked crazily through the clinging stuff. Over to the right the pumice seemed to thin out, and farther over he could see the roadway he should have taken. He swung his wheels to the right and the jeep lurched through the gray sand, using up a lot of power, but making little progress. For minutes on end Jerry gave the jeep all it had, and he could hear its engine laboring tiredly.
Suddenly the motor died. Jerry tried to start it again but could not. He checked his temperature gauge. The engine was extremely hot from the continual use of top power. From his mechanical school course, Jerry realized the rotors had “frozen” and that it wouldn’t run again until they had cooled off.
As he waited impatiently for the engine to cool, a warning voice in his mind was saying: “Your oxygen is getting lower by the second. If the jeep doesn’t get out of here within the next fifteen minutes, you and your dad will never make it.”
Jerry shook off the terrible thoughts. He stamped his feet to warm them. The electric circuit in his suit seemed to be breaking down. If it collapsed completely, he would be frozen instantly by the Lunar cold.
Jerry massaged his dad’s hands and legs in case his suit, too, was getting colder. He worked steadily until his hands ached. Then he checked the gauge again. It was falling slowly, but heavy insulation was still keeping the engine hot.
At last Jerry decided he should not wait any longer. With a prayer on his lips, he pressed the starter button. The engine rumbled sluggishly, coughed, then quickened to full strength. He jammed the fuel pedal hard and tried to guide the jeep’s swirling, spinning motion through the Lunar sand. Slowly the little car pulled itself like a weary swimmer toward the firm bank. Finally the wheels found good traction and the jeep lurched onto the roadway.
Jerry heaved a tremendous sigh and sped down the path toward the geology camp.
Less than an hour later Jerry was being permitted into the room of one of the huts where his father had been carried for examination by the camp physician. Jerry had been told that his father had suffered a slight concussion, but that he would be all right.
Capt. Welsh smiled from his cot as Jerry walked in.
“Hi, space man,” his father greeted. “The doctor says the men here were mighty happy to get their mail on time.”
“I’m glad I came on here, then, instead of going back to the observatory,” Jerry murmured.
“You did the job in the best tradition of the Space Mail Service, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh said, smiling proudly. “If I had any doubts that you’d be able to follow me some day, Son, they’re gone now.”
Jerry nodded happily. A few doubts had been removed from his own mind in the past hour.
ALL ABOARD FOR SPACE
It had already been a wonderful birthday for the twins, Sue and Steve Shannon, when their father asked, “How about it, kids—are you ready for that space ride I promised?”
Sue’s big hazel eyes looked like walnuts as she stared in surprise. Steve’s blue eyes were more like plums. Could they really believe what they were hearing?
“I said I’d take you on the ride when you two reached 12, didn’t I?” Mr. Shannon went on.
They hadn’t forgotten and were suddenly as excited as two young ducks who have just discovered water. Mr. Shannon looked at his watch. “We’d better get ready. The next flight is at four o’clock.”
Less than a half hour later, Mrs. Shannon was bidding goodbye to the three as they climbed into the family helicopter on the roof of their home. In this year of 2004 nearly everybody owned a ’copter. Mrs. Shannon had been invited to go along but she said no coaxing in the world could get her up in one of those “rocket things.”
The overhead doors of the garage swung open as Mrs. Shannon pushed the button on the wall. As soon as the three riders were comfortably seated, Mr. Shannon started up the engine and the overhead blade began churning. Gently the ’copter lifted into the blue sky and headed out over the city.
“I can’t really believe we’re going to take a trip into space!” Sue said happily.
“Some day I’m going to be a spaceman and travel to all the planets!” Steve declared.
The plane passed over beautiful triple-decked highways, over green farms loaded with scientific equipment and solar mirrors, over plastic-domed skyscrapers. Presently a large oval appeared just ahead. “There’s the space port!” Sue exclaimed.
When Mr. Shannon got the signal to land, he brought the helicopter down into the parking lot at the edge of the port. Then the three jumped out onto the ground. As they walked toward the main building, the twins excitedly noticed the busy activity of the field. What impressed them most were the massive torpedo-shaped rockets which were half-buried in their concrete launching pits.
“Where is that biggest rocket going, Dad?” Steve asked.
When his father said it was going to the moon, a tingle raced up the boy’s spine and all at once he wished he could be on the ship himself.
“There’s our rocket over there,” Mr. Shannon said, pointing to a smaller craft of light-weight beryllium metal just across the way. Near the pit was a sign that read:
SPACE RIDES DAILY.
ENJOY THE THRILL OF A LIFETIME A THOUSAND MILES ABOVE EARTH.
Mr. Shannon got their tickets. Then after a heart check-up they waited in line with the other eager sight-seers. Finally the space port officer took down the chain that held back the crowd and permitted them to approach the rocket. They had to cross a bridge to get from the pit edge into the ship. As they crossed, Steve looked down into the hot pit and saw clouds of flame and smoke pouring from the great jet tubes.
In the ship, the Shannons were given couch numbers in a large room with the rest of their companions. Then a steward came around with a special candy which he told the passengers to eat to prevent their getting sick. Next everyone was issued queer-looking shoes with metal soles.
“What’re these for, Dad?” Sue wanted to know.
She saw her father and brother exchange winks. “She’ll find out, won’t she?” Mr. Shannon teased.
As Steve and Sue lay on their soft couches and fastened plastic belts across their bodies, their father explained the purpose of this. “We’ll blast-off at a pretty fast speed and if we weren’t buckled down we’d be thrown about and hurt.”
When the moment of blast-off came, Steve and Sue went through the most exciting experience of their lives. A loud roar filled their ears and it felt suddenly as if the bottom of their stomachs had dropped out. They were pressed deeply into their couches and they had the feeling of being flattened out as though under the foot of an elephant. Then slowly Steve and Sue felt the awful weight lifting from them and finally it was gone altogether.
“Ugh!” Sue groaned dizzily, unstrapping herself as the others were doing. “What happened?”
When she tried to walk, she understood the purpose of the metal-soled shoes. “We scarcely weigh anything now,” their father explained. “The magnetism of our soles is the only thing that keeps us from floating about like a feather.”
The guide, who said his name was Mr. Quinlan, led the sight-seers to a huge window. The young Shannons gasped in wonder at what they saw. The sky was nearly pitch black and filled with more burning lights than they even guessed could exist.
“We’re about a thousand miles above the earth,” Mr. Quinlan said. “We’re out of the earth’s atmosphere and that’s why the sky is dark and the stars so brilliant. Our rear jets are thrusting just barely enough to keep us from being pulled back down to earth.”
The guide next said that they would go outside the ship in space suits. Sue and Steve whooped in joy for they had not expected this. Mr. Quinlan distributed space gear from a cabinet. Then he explained how they were put on. After the flexible suits and plastic helmets were donned, everyone turned on his oxygen, which came from shoulder tanks. The others looked to Steve like balloon toys inflated with air and he had to laugh as they waddled about.
The tourists were led out of a side door onto a balcony which resembled a large fire escape. Everyone was told to buckle himself to the rail by a short length of cord in front of him.
“If one of us were to lose contact with the ship,” Mr. Shannon warned his son and daughter, “he’d go drifting off into space.” Sue and Steve shuddered at the thought of this.
Everyone was told to buckle himself to the rail by a short length of cord
Mr. Quinlan pointed out whirls of misty clouds that were called nebulas. He also showed them star clusters and the brighter planets. The sight-seers had a closeup view of the earth that looked like a shimmering green ball. The guide did his speaking through a small radio attached to his suit. Each tourist had a receiver in his helmet through which he could listen.
For almost a full hour Sue and Steve, together with the other spell-bound passengers, took in the splendor of this strange silent place, the vastness of which staggered the imagination.
“Isn’t this a wonderful tribute to the greatness of God’s creation?” Mr. Shannon said to his children. Steve and Sue had to agree with him wholeheartedly.
When Mr. Quinlan was ready to go back into the ship, he tried the outside door switch, but the door failed to open. Over his two-way radio circuit, the passengers could hear a worried discussion between him and the pilot inside. They learned that a tube of compressed air which operated the outer door was jammed. There was nothing that could be done about it from the inside. Some of the women began sobbing, believing they would never return to earth again.
Mr. Shannon looked at his son and daughter anxiously. “Keep your chins up, kids,” he said. “Nothing was ever gained by people losing their heads. I’m sure they’ll figure out some way to save us.”
“I—I’m not afraid, Dad,” Steve said bravely.
There were tears of fright in Sue’s brown eyes but her small chin was courageously set and she would not permit herself to give in to the terror she really felt.
“You’re brave ones,” their father said, putting his big arms around their shoulders.
Mr. Quinlan approached the Shannons. “Mr. Shannon,” he said, “I’ve got something important to talk over with you and your son.”
The two listened closely as the guide outlined a daring plan. He pointed to a small, circular opening some ten feet above the platform. He said that if a person could climb into the opening he could turn an emergency valve that would double the air pressure and clear the jammed tube. Since Steve was the only boy on the platform, and therefore the smallest, Mr. Quinlan wanted to know if Steve would try it. Steve felt his heart fluttering crazily. He was both afraid and excited.
“There’s only one danger, son,” the guide pointed out. “You’ll have to unfasten your safety line. If you think you can keep calm, though, there should be no real risk.”
“What will happen if the job isn’t done?” Mr. Shannon asked grimly.
Mr. Quinlan shrugged. “There’s not much that can be done. These suits will run out of oxygen in twenty minutes and only your boy is slim enough to get inside the opening. Then, too, they can’t land the ship without the risk of tossing us all out.”
Mr. Shannon said quietly to Steve, “It’s up to you, son. If you believe you can go through with it without losing your head and getting thrown from the ship....”
Steve swallowed hard, thinking of the lives of the others around him that depended upon him. “I’ll try it,” he managed to say.
He felt his knees go weak when the safety rope was unfastened from his waist and he realized there was nothing now but his magnetic shoes to hold him to the ship. Carefully Mr. Quinlan boosted him up toward the opening above. Tick-tick-tick went his metal soles against the shiny skin of the craft as he made his way upward by means of special climbing handles on the rocket hull.
“Keep calm,” he told himself. “A spaceman doesn’t lose his head.”
He was thankful for the firm grip of his gloves as his fingers closed about the sides of the chamber and he pulled himself up inside. It was a close fit even for him. Mr. Quinlan had told him that usually the emergency valve was easily reached from the deck above but that during this trip the deck was closed off for repairs and couldn’t be entered.
Steve found the valve handle and turned it as he was instructed. Almost immediately he heard the deafening blast of many voices in his receiver. Among the words he heard were, “The door’s opening!” Steve sighed deeply and carefully started down again.
But the danger was not over yet. He still had to be very cautious. This was brought to him sickeningly when he drew his foot back with greater force than usual and found himself weaving backward into space. With a chill of terror he grabbed a climbing handle and pulled himself snug against the ship’s hull again. Finally he felt the strong arms of his father on the lower part of his legs. He relaxed and was helped down onto the platform amid the cheers of everyone around.
The sight-seers, sobered by their close call, trooped silently back into the ship. A moment later the craft began dropping earthward, its jets acting as brakes to check the rapid descent.
After landing, the Shannons were called into the office of the Chief of Operations at the space port.
“Young man,” the chief said to Steve, “let me congratulate you for the brave thing you did.” He offered his hand and Steve felt a flush of pride as he took the big palm in his own.
“Such an unselfish deed can never be fully repaid,” the chief went on. “Tell me, Steve, do you like space-going?”
Steve’s eyes glowed with stars. “Very much, sir,” he said. “Some day I’m going to become a spaceman myself.”
“Then this little reward we have for you and your sister may help you reach your goal.” He held out a plastic-sealed card. Steve took it as his heart raced. It was a lifetime rocket pass!
WHEEL IN THE SKY
Sue and Steve Shannon were riding with their father in a “space ferry” several thousand miles above the Earth. They could look out of the plastic windows of the little ship and see the winding curve of Central America far below.
“Look, Steve!” Sue exclaimed. “I see the Panama Canal!”
“There’s a storm over the Gulf of Mexico,” Steve said, studying a big gray patch over the water. “It makes you feel like a king being so high above everything!”
The Atlantic and Pacific were throbbing blue carpets, topped by breakers of molten silver where the sunlight hit them. It was a marvelous sight, more like a scene from a fairy-land.
“There’s the big space ship we got off,” Sue pointed out. “It’s beginning to drop back to Earth.”
“And there’s the ‘Wheel in the Sky,’” Steve said, looking ahead. “We’ll soon be there! Isn’t it great?”
Compared to the tiny ship they were in, which was shaped like a medicine capsule, the Wheel in the Sky was a gigantic thing. It looked like an automobile wheel and by its moving spokes the children saw that it was turning just like one.
“Why does the Wheel spin, Dad?” Steve asked.
“That’s in order to give the people inside of it a feeling of weight,” Mr. Shannon explained. “As I told you before, things in space have no weight because there is no gravity out here to speak of. What happens when you ride on the merry-go-round on the school playground?”
“You have to hold on tight or it’ll throw you off,” Steve answered.
“The Wheel in the Sky does the same thing. It tries to throw you off, but since you are safely inside of it, all it can do is throw your weight against the floor of the Wheel. Understand?”
The children nodded and smiled, pleased at knowing one more fact about the strange ways of space.
As the ferry neared the big space station, Steve watched the black heavens all around them. The stars were thicker than salt crystals and glittered like precious gems. Close to the Wheel, the ferry had to use its rockets in order to keep up with the spinning of the Wheel. Presently a door in the rim of the Wheel opened. Two men in space suits appeared in the doorway and threw out a line which stuck to the ferry by magnetism. Then the men pulled the little ship inside and closed the doors.
“Here we are!” the ferry pilot called to his passengers. “Everybody out!”
Since there was fresh air in the hangar, the riders did not have to use space suits. Just as his father had said, Steve found that he could walk around as easily as he did back in Arkansas.
“Ready for a tour of the Wheel, kids?” Mr. Shannon asked.
“Sure!” the twins replied together.
Mr. Shannon worked for the American Space Supply Company which carried supplies to the planets of the Solar System. This was the year 2004 and by now nearly all the planets or their moons had budding Earth colonies. Sue and Steve had earned free lifetime space passes because of a heroic act Steve had done a month before on the twins’ very first trip into space.
As Mr. Shannon took the two around the “man-made moon,” they were almost overcome by all the wonderful things they saw. They learned that the Wheel in the Sky was both a scientific laboratory and a military lookout. With their big telescopes, the Space Guard could see every mile of Earth, for the Wheel circled the globe several times a day.
While the Shannons were in the Military Lookout Room peering at the world through a telescope, Sue said, “I wish Mom could be here with us.”
“I do, too, Sis,” Steve replied. “But it would take all the soldiers in the Humpty-Dumpty story to get Mom into a rocket, wouldn’t it, Dad?”
Mr. Shannon chuckled. “I believe it would, Son.”
Their father leaned over and whispered something to the officer at the telescope, who nodded. The man slipped a high power lens on the telescope and turned it on a certain part of the United States, toward which the Wheel was slowly moving.
“Take another look, Sue,” her father said.