by Earl
And so, for the first time, a mouse and a woman were in space. We don’t know how the mouse crept in, with the food, but we trapped it later and killed it. We can’t share our precious food, not even with a tiny mouse.
Karsen stared back at us—openly exposed for what she was. I think not a word was said for a full sixty seconds. Finally Captain Atwell, his face thunderclouds of anger, motioned her down.
“Explain!” he said in a cold, tight voice.
Lonna Karsen recovered herself and faced him with a defiant air.
“I’m Lon Karsen’s twin sister, Lonna. Lon was never too well, as you know, after losing his hand on Venus, and then going through the Mercury Expedition. His health failed more after that, and he knew he couldn’t go on this one. He would be a handicap. He was heartbroken. We talked it over and decided I should take his place, without saying anything. Our ancestors were pioneers. We have a name we’re proud of—”
“Never mind all that,” Atwell broke in furiously. “No place for sentiment here. This is an expedition to another planet—to unknown hardships and dangers. It’s a man’s game. Real men, at that. And now we have a woman with us—Lord! That’s more of a handicap than Karsen could ever have been!”
Atwell thought seriously of turning around and bringing her back. Or packing her into our small emergency lifeboat and heading her back to Earth.
“You’ll lose valuable time,” Lonna herself reminded him. “Jupiter is nearest Earth now. It’s heading toward aphelion. If you miss this chance, it will be twelve years before the next close opposition.”
She went on steadily. “I ask no favors. Treat me as one of the men. It so happens that I’ve hunted lions in Africa, and flew a plane over the South Pole, solo. I can take it—well, except mice, maybe. But there won’t be any mice on Ganymede, Captain.”
Atwell gave in, finally. Jupiter takes twelve long years to swing around its huge orbit. And only at one point is that orbit closest to Earth. Each time Earth comes around the sun, toward Jupiter’s side, Jupiter is millions of miles farther out.
If we missed this perihelion, we might miss getting there at all. A few million extra miles cannot be treated lightly, in space journeys. There are no gas stations in space, or grocery stores, when you run short.
THE rest of us shared Atwell’s misgivings. But still, we admired her a little. Few women would have the courage even to step into a spaceship. She might, for all we knew, be as good a recruit as any of us. We gave her the benefit of the doubt.
But we knew why Atwell hesitated, mostly. Markers put it into words.
“Bosh, Captain! To coin a phrase, we’re grizzled explorers, scientists. Story-writers would make a great fuss about this—nine men alone in space with a woman. But naturally we’ll all remember—Karsen included, I’m sure—that our business is grim, important. Shake, Karsen!”
Lonna took his hairy paw gratefully. Thereafter we called her Karsen, quite sexlessly. We almost forgot the matter—till that scream she gave when the asteroid grazed us. She took Atwell’s humiliating call-down without a word—like a man. Yet we wondered if we had made a mistake.
That finishes the incidents of the space trip.
My reports will be every other day hereafter, as it takes a tremendous amount of power to send etherline radio waves 400 million miles, and we can’t afford to exhaust our reserves.
And now, we finally caught all your calls. We return greetings to Mars Expedition Number Three, Venus Expedition Two, Mercury Expedition Two, and Tycho Space Station! Thanks for your hearty wishes. Same to you.
CHAPTER II
Wonders of Jupiter
NINETY-FOURTH day.
We stepped out on Ganymede yesterday for the first time. Captain Atwell led the way, naturally. He had been the first human being to set foot on four worlds—Mars, Venus, Mercury and Ganymede. He deserves the honor. He set the Earth flag upright on its stand, looked around, and saluted as though welcoming Ganymede into the federation of worlds.
Chemist Von Zell had previously tested the air, to find it thin but breathable! And Ling, after thermometer readings, had announced the average as only forty below zero, Fahrenheit! Not worse than Earth’s arctic regions. How such near-Earth conditions can be in effect, way out here in the Siberia of space, we didn’t know at first.
We had expected a mean temperature of two hundred below, and no atmosphere to speak of. Naturally we’re pleasantly surprised. We won’t have to use the stuffy seal-suits.
We didn’t stay out more than an hour, in the bitter cold. The next day, however, we hiked around a bit, bundled in heavy parkas, acclimating ourselves. The spot we’ve landed in is flat and snow-covered, like the steppes of Siberia. The snow is a light coating, though, hardly more than an inch. And it is crystallized water—not solidified methane or ammonia.
The long-range observations from Earth missed the presence of oxygen and water vapor on Ganymede, as they missed the oxygen in the cloud-packed air envelope of Venus. I think Earth astronomers have become used to having their pet theories exploded, by these direct expeditions.
Swinerton, biologist, has already accounted for the unexpected “heat.” The surface of Ganymede, as far as we can see, seems to be covered by a uniform carpet of moss, under the sprinkled snow.
Thus Ganymede held three distinct surprises—breathable air, livable warmth and life. Swinerton makes the remark that “life either adapts to its environment, or adapts environment to itself.” For instance, every bit of fertile ground on Earth was patiently manufactured from barren sand, by bacteria and plants.
So with the “moss” of Ganymede. For it stores heat! Swinerton put a tuft in a bell jar, and in four hours it had raised the temperature ten degrees. Von Zell is making eager chemical tests. He suspects that instead of chlorophyll, the Ganymedian moss holds a strange compound that gathers heat. Thermo-synthesis, instead of photo-synthesis.
Thus the surface temperature of Ganymede averages a comparatively high minus forty, instead of minus two hundred. How many slow ages it took for this heat-gathering moss to spread and warm up the whole atmosphere, we can’t guess. But how many unthinkable eons did it take Earth vegetation to convert hard rock and lifeless sand to the flowering fields we know today? Time makes all things possible.
At any rate, the moss thrills us. Swinerton calls it “thermoss,” cleverly. Each day it silently absorbs the sun’s rays. Each night it radiates that heat, to keep away from itself life-congealing cold. The amount of heat given off, in thermal terms, must be untold trillions of calories. Tarnay already talks of transplanting the thermoss to Earth and achieving the sun-engine at last, by confining the heat thrown off and running steam engines with it.
As expected, there are other flora—trees, bushes, reeds, all apparently of the thermo-synthesis type. These are seen in the distance, with binoculars. Undoubtedly there is animal life, too, though we have observed none yet. The conditions, thanks to the therm-plants, are too akin to Earth to exclude fauna.
What will these animals be like? On Mars, the insectal-beasts. On Venus, the rampant carnivores. On Mercury, winged creatures. What will Ganymede have? The life-forms of a new planet or world are always its most fascinating feature—next to pyramids.
Ling has just measured the force of gravity. Point two-zero-seven, about one-fifth of Earth’s—and comparable to Mercury’s. It struck us suddenly that though we are on a satellite, it is actually larger than the planet Mercury! Ganymede’s diameter is one hundred miles more than Mercury’s three thousand-ten.
Thanks for the musical broadcast you relayed to us, Earth. We joined in some choruses, as we imagine they did on the expeditions at Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. The voice of mankind spreading to the stars! We’re glad to be part of this epic pioneering period.
The sun set today.
THERE was a noticeable lessening of light, though there can never be true night on this world. Jupiter hangs eternally in the sky, shedding a ruddy silver glow like a huge moon. Ganymede t
urns only one face to Jupiter, as the Moon to Earth and Mercury to the sun. We had landed on the Jupiter-lighted hemisphere.
It is a grand sight.
Great belted Jupiter hovers overhead constantly, shifting position among the stars, but staying the same distance above the horizon. Imagine, if you can, the Moon bloated to twenty times its diameter. In fact, it seemed to us the first few hours that it was falling toward us, bomblike, rapidly increasing in size.
Ganymede revolves about Jupiter in an Earth week, or seven days and four hours. Thus, for three and a half days the sun shines, and for three and a half days there is no sunlight. And then Jupiter comes out in all his glory, in the Ganymedian night firmament. Jupiter is so huge and near, and reflects so much sunlight, that we can easily read book-print under his rays!
With the sun’s glare away, dim though it was, the stars came out, too. Also five other of Jupiter’s moons. On Mars, we had been privileged to see the strange phenomenon of two moons in the sky. But now we saw five. Io with a crescent, being nearer to Jupiter. Callisto beyond, like a big silver plate. And three of the small ones further out. Markers has the ship’s telescope trained up, searching for possible new moons other than the known twelve.
Captain Atwell had us begin building an ice-house today, in which to take up quarters. With all the men working, we have already laid the foundation. The ice lies at hand, in huge boulders which we drag up and chisel into blocks. Karsen did her share; but Atwell watched her as she panted in the thin air, growing tired and cold.
“That’s enough, Karsen,” he said tersely. “Go in the ship and rest. No need to wear yourself out just trying to prove you’re no handicap.”
KARSEN’S eyes lit up fiercely in the Jupiter-glow. Shaking her head doggedly, she lugged another ice block to her shoulder—and collapsed. Atwell had me help her in, but even then she only rested on my arm.
As I left the bunkroom, I heard her sob in anger at her own weakness. She had tried to keep up with us, tried to fill her brother’s shoes—but we men couldn’t help treating her as someone we had to make allowances for.
By the way, Earth, we see you only as an evening star, for a few hours after sunset. Your orbit is so puny from this distance that, as we see it, you always hug the sun. Venus and Mercury are entirely lost in the sun’s glare. If there happened to be any intelligent beings here, they would never know of the existence of Venus and Mercury, except by telescope and sun-filter.
Ninety-sixth day.
The ice-house proceeded rapidly yesterday until it now resembles an igloo. We are bringing the roof to a domed peak. Tarnay is the designer, having spent many years on Earth in the arctics among Eskimoes.
My reports will be briefer for the present, till this is completed. Atwell wants it done quickly as a permanent camp. He will then let the men pursue their various scientific studies.
Still in their off periods of rest, the men have managed to glean a few interesting data. Parletti, with his shovel and geology gadgets, finds Ganymedian soil almost devoid of heavy metals. No lead, zinc, silver, gold or radium. Even little iron. Mainly magnesium, aluminum, calcium silicates. But yet, Parletti says, Ganymede may some day attract a busy trade, for it has beryllium.
There will come the day, he predicts, when beryllium vies with iron as the most important metal, especially in an interplanetary economic boom. Beryllium-hulled spaceships, light and strong, are the coming thing.
Markers with his telescope is busily sweeping the Jovian skies for new moons or comets. Saturn’s rings, by the way, are visible from here with the naked eye.
Ling watches his Geiger-counter avidly. It is ringing up cosmic rays like a cash register, but that is due to the air’s thinness, he says. If the proportion comes out right, it will prove once and for all what Millikan, Compton and those early cosmologists theorized—that the cosmic rays come from outer space.
Von Zell analyzed the air more closely, and found its oxygen percentage high, almost twenty-five per cent. This, he says, is because Ganymede has probably never known a temperature as high as zero. Most chemical reactions take place above zero.
Thus even active oxygen is inhibited, and stays free.
Swinerton is snapping pictures of animals in the distance with a telefoto lens, as Atwell won’t yet let him range beyond camp.
HALLOWAY is like a bloodhound on a leash, wanting to search for pyramids. He made the cryptic remark that if we find a pyramid on Ganymede, the mystery of the Martian pyramids will be solved. Halloway is driving us wild with such statements. We plague him ceaselessly to tell us what he means, but he enjoys keeping us in the dark.
“We’ll run across a pyramid sooner or later,” Parletti said for all of us. “What a great day that will be—telling Earth the ‘Secret of the Pyramids’ !”
Only Karsen has nothing to do—except cook and keep the ship’s cabin in order. Her work done, she once asked.
“What else can I do, Captain?”
“Nothing,” Atwell replied. “Just keep out of our way.”
Naturally he’s gruff, with more important things on his mind. No danger has yet showed itself, but we are in an alien environment where anything may happen.
Ice-house nearly finished today. We had to knock off work in the afternoon. A howling wind swept over the plains we are on, sending the thermometer down twenty more degrees. Parletti explains it as a “tidal wind” from Jupiter’s enormous gravity-drag. That is, Jupiter’s gravity causes regular “tides” in the atmosphere, as our Moon’s gravity does in Earth’s oceans. It “ebbed” in five hours, and soon the indefatigable thermoss had spread out its stored heat, and we went back to work.
An incident happened today.
One of the men—I won’t name him—went back in the ship while the rest were working. Karsen was preparing a meal. We heard her muffled scream, and the man came out again, rubbing his cheek. There was no explanation from either one, but Captain Atwell alluded to it while we ate, later.
“Men, this is a scientific expedition of exploration. We expect to stay six months. Nothing must distract us from our studies and labors. Nothing.
He was looking at Karsen. She quietly kept on serving, saying not a word. The incident is closed. I mention it only to show that, though human, men arise above natural impulses on occasions like this. For the man in question openly apologized to Karsen, took the blame and eased the tension in the air. Even Atwell smiled in dismissal of the matter.
Attention, Earth astronomers!
Markers has just discovered, not one, but two new moons of Jupiter! This brings the total to fourteen, and confirms his tentative discovery of them from Mars, on that expedition. We clapped Markers on the back and toasted him with hot coffee.
Somehow, it seems a fitting thing, since our ship is named the Galileo. Galileo, in 1610, discovered the four big moons of Jupiter, and thereby launched the science of astronomy on its modern phase. Other Jovian satellites were observed, three as recently as 1936 and 1998, but none since then.
Markers now has the distinction of having discovered three new moons invisible from Earth in even the best telescopes. Mercury’s moon, and these two of Jupiter.
“One moon behind Galileo,” he mumbled, turning his tube on Saturn in hope. “But don’t worry—I’ll pass him yet.”
CHAPTER III
Where Are the Pyramids?
NINETY-EIGHTH day.
Ice-house finished yesterday, and we moved in. It is large, roomy and a perfect protection from the icy winds outside. With one seleno-cell heating unit going in the center, it is comfortably warm. As with Eskimo igloos, we don’t have to worry about the walls melting down. The outside cold counteracts the inner heat, in the wall itself.
Now we are more or less permanently established on Ganymede, for our six-month stay. Atwell says he will organize a short exploration tomorrow, beyond sight of our ship for the first time.
The sun rose again today, after our “night” of three and a half Earth days. It was an inspirin
g sight—the small yellow globe-star rising slowly as though bewildered from having lost its way. It lighted up the widespread plains of green moss with its tuft of never-melting snow. The phenomenon of double shadows again intrigued us—those of the sun and Jupiter.
Huge Jupiter seemed to glare in annoyance, with its Red Spot eye, at this rival so much smaller but still brighter. Somehow, this scene out here in the deeps of space is—well, lovely. Mars was flat, drab desert. Venus was stifling fog. Mercury was harsh glare.
Yes, Ganymede out here, with its white and green and multiple moons, and its magnificent Jupiter-orb, is sheerly beautiful. All of us have at times expressed the same opinion, if you can imagine hard-bitten explorer-scientists softening for a moment or two.
Parletti is doctoring Tarnay for severe frostbite. One of his toes froze, and Parletti had to amputate. Tarnay is doing well, but will be laid up for a week. Atwell warned us to watch for numbness, whenever outside. In this biting, relentless cold, it creeps up on you unawares.
But we’re pretty well acclimated, with red skins and leathery hands and face. If transported suddenly to temperate climate, we’d probably wither in the “heat.”
Hello, Mercury Expedition Two! Received your signal, relayed from Earth. Strange, isn’t it—you sweltering in heat and cursing the sun only thirty million miles away. We’re 500 million miles away, and feel almost like worshipping the sun when it rises.
Our routine continues.
Captain Atwell made a short exploration today, with Swinerton, Ling and Halloway. Armed with rifles, and carrying emergency knapsacks of rations, they hiked ten miles and came back in a wide circle.
Nothing eventful happened. Ganymede seems to be a quiet, unmenacing world. Yet Captain Atwell appeared thoughtful. We had met unexpected dangers on Mars, Venus and Mercury. Why should Ganymede be an exception?
