Journey Into Space

by Charles Chilton

  The time to cut in the atomic motor and gain our final burst of speed was almost on us. Jet was already calling base. “Hullo, Control. Booster jettisoned. Standing by to cut in second motor. Awaiting your signal. Over.”

  The seconds ticked by in silent expectation as I waited for Control to give the OK, but no sound came from my earpiece. Jet repeated his call. There was still no answer.

  “My head-set is out of action,” he said. “Any of you get their reply?”

  None of us had.

  “Lemmy, any idea what might be wrong?”

  “Receiver and transmitter working satisfactorily according to the indicators. I’ll try the g.p. speaker.”

  That was dead too.

  “Maybe the amplifying circuit’s packed in,” went on Lemmy. “Wouldn’t surprise me if the shock of the jettison smashed every valve in the ship.”

  “We can’t wait much longer, Jet.” Mitch was impatient. “We’re losing momentum every second. Unless we take full advantage of our present speed we’ll never make it.”

  “I’ll give them one more try. Unless they answer immediately, we’ll use our own judgment and fire the motor manually. Hullo, Control--Luna calling. Come in please.”

  Silence. The booster was still behind us, gradually getting smaller, a black disc against the background of the glaring, pink Earth.

  “Stand by, Mitch, we’ll give her a full burst. Whole of tank one.”

  “Check.”

  “Everybody battened down? The acceleration will be high. Things will be tough for a bit.” “Oh no,” groaned Lemmy.

  “OK, Mitch?”

  “OK.”

  “Fire!”

  There was a sound like the roar of a thousand heavy guns, a passing express train, a colossal waterfall and a clap of thunder. The ship trembled like a leaf, steadied herself and began at once to increase her velocity. We were no longer rising vertically but at an angle to our original line of flight, entering the set course, which if all went well, would carry us towards the exact spot where the Moon would be in less than five days from now.

  If the pressure experienced during the first firing period had been unpleasant, this was ten times worse. All the sensations of heaviness and the great weight on the chest came quicker than before. I felt as though I were being pushed through the couch. The muscles of my thighs seemed to flatten outwards. The loose flesh on my face pressed down on to my cheek bones. It was as though a pair of powerful hands had been placed on each cheek and were trying to pull the flesh from my face towards my ears. My mouth stretched until it hurt. My tongue was too heavy to lift and saliva gathered in the back of my throat. Breathing was well nigh impossible. I began to yell, to moan and scream. It was the only way I could force the breath out of my lungs. They seemed to fill of their own accord, causing me to sing out in deep, sucking, involuntary sobs. Had I been able to do so, I would have kicked my legs, waved my arms in the struggle to breathe. I expected my lungs to collapse.

  The agony lasted for a full two minutes. Then it ceased. The suddenness with which the motor cut out and the deep silence that followed set bells ringing in my ears. Mitch passed the back of his hand across his forehead. His face was ash coloured.

  Gradually the ringing faded away and my hearing returned. I heard Lemmy speak--as from a distance.

  “Is it over?”

  “Yes, Lemmy. Feel OK?”

  “Like I’ve been through a mangle.”

  “Doc?”

  “OK, I think.”

  “Mitch?”

  Mitch didn’t answer--not at first. He attempted to say something but was unable to speak. He was trying hard not to vomit. So was I.

  “What’s up, Mitch?”

  “I--feel--like--death.” He got the words out only with great effort.

  “Lie still. Don’t move. We’ll all lie still for a few minutes.”

  Presently I began to feel better. So did Lemmy. In fact he was almost objectionably cheerful. “Lemmy, if you feel fit enough, get up and get to work on that radio. We must re-establish contact with base as soon as possible.”

  “Oh sure, Jet. Leave it to me.” He undid his safety straps, sat up in his bunk, took off and went drifting up to the ceiling. I’ve never seen such a look of horror and surprise on a man’s face as I did at that moment. Lemmy lay against the cabin roof, face down, his arms and legs spread out awkwardly.

  “Jet--get me down. Help!”

  “Serves you right for getting off your bed without your boots on. You should know better than that.”

  “All I did was reach out for them and I shot straight up here.”

  “You should have held on to your couch. The slightest movement is likely to send you drifting. It’s been drummed into you often enough.”

  “Pull yourself down by the rail, Lemmy,” I called.

  He did as I suggested. “Oh,” he said, “I feel just like a feather.”

  None of us weighed as much. We were all weightless, as was everything in the ship, and would remain so until we landed.

  “Is it going to be like this all the way to the Moon, Doc?”

  “I’m afraid so, Lemmy. But you’ll get used to it. Now, gently--not too hard--you’ll hit the floor.”

  He reached his bunk without incident and, hanging on to the side with one hand, pulled his boots from their stowage locker with the other. He secured himself with his safety strap and put on his metal-soled, magnetic boots. He was then ready to descend to the floor, which he did, negotiating the rungs of the ladder rather drunkenly. But once he touched the floor he was able to stand up and, with the clumsy steps of a robot, stagger across the cabin.

  “What’s it like to walk, Lemmy?” I asked. I was feeling much better now and was putting on my own boots as I spoke.

  “Like your feet are anchored but your head’s adrift.”

  I stepped out of my bunk and stumbled across to Lemmy. It was a weird sensation, but after a few practice trips round the cabin Lemmy and I were walking almost normally. But there were a few things that took some getting used to. For example, if you held up your arm it had a tendency to stay up. It needed as much muscular power to get it down again as it needed to raise it. It would not drop back to a hanging position as it would on Earth.

  “Try walking up the wall,” suggested Jet good humouredly.

  “Huh?”

  “Yes, come on, Doc,” said Lemmy. “You go one way, I’ll go the other. I’ll meet you by the pilot’s hatchway in the roof.”

  Climbing up the wall was no more difficult than walking across the floor. I had picked a part free from control boards and ascended with ease. The cabin seemed to half turn over as I climbed. When I reached the ceiling it was to see Lemmy advancing towards me with a wide grin. “Doctor Matthews, I presume. Allow me to introduce myself. Lemmy Barnet, the human fly.”

  We both grinned. We couldn’t help it. It was such a fantastic, enjoyable situation.

  Oddly enough, although Lemmy and I were standing on the ceiling, we had absolutely no sensation of being upside down. But the cabin looked haywire. The ceiling was our floor, the floor the roof, and it was Jet on his bunk and Mitch lying on his who appeared to be the wrong way up. It was hard to believe that they would not come crashing down on us at any moment.

  “Don’t hang about up there like that,” said Mitch suddenly. “I feel bad enough as it is. And what about that radio?”

  “Yes, come on, Lemmy,” laughed Jet. “Cut out the fan and games--we’ve got work to do.”

  Mitch’s stern comments brought us all back to our senses. We recrossed the ceiling and came ‘down’ the walls again to floor level.

  I carried out my routine check of the control board under my care and, while Jet carried out his inspection for him, I went over to talk to Mitch. “How are you feeling?”

  “Crook, Doc, very crook.”

  “Well, the radar’s still working anyway.” Lemmy, over by the main control table, was talking to no one in particular.

  Mitch
was suffering from a bad attack of space sickness. He was the oldest member of the crew and it was no more than I expected. I told him to rest for a couple of hours, then he would feel more himself again. But Mitch had no intention of resting; in fact he became very argumentative. “How long is it going to take Lemmy to put that radio right?” he demanded.

  “Give him a chance,” Jet replied. “He’s hardly started work on it yet.”

  “And what if he doesn’t put it right?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? He knows every valve, screw and condenser in the ship. Whatever the fault is, he’ll find it.”

  “I wish I could think so. How do we know our height, speed or anything else unless we can contact base?”

  “If it comes to it we can take some fixes on the sun and the planets.”

  “Then I’d better get over to the astrodome and start.” He raised himself up in his bunk. Jet pushed him flat again.

  “Oh no, Mitch. You stay where you are until Doc says you’re in a fit condition to get up. Now take it easy. In a few minutes Lemmy will be through to Control and everything will be all right. Give him a pill, Doc.”

  As Jet turned away from Mitch to go over to where Lemmy was tinkering with the radio he gave me an enquiring raise of his eyebrows. Mitch had a little trouble swallowing his pills, but twenty minutes later he was asleep.

  ‘When he wakes again,’ I thought to myself, ‘he’ll find contact with base has been re-established and he’ll have a sweeter temper.’

  I couldn’t have been more wrong--about the contact, or Mitch.

  Chapter 5 - ACTION STATIONS!

  Many hours had passed. Mitch and I were trying to get some rest while Jet worked with Lemmy. It wasn’t easy to sleep, but we lay on our bunks, so far as it is possible to lie down under gravity-less conditions, and did our best. But after only a few minutes, Mitch called over to the two men at the control table and said: “How’s it going?”

  Jet came over to us so that Lemmy wouldn’t hear his reply. “He’s still got half the radio equipment all over the table,” he said quietly.

  “Isn’t he ever going to find the trouble? Two days he’s been at it now--and not a peep out of the darned 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 his head hit the underside of the bunk above him. Under different circumstances, it would have been a funny incident but one look at Mitch’s face told me this was no moment for hilarity. Angrily he pushed himself down again and grabbed the rail to hold himself in position.

  “Go back!” he shouted. “Go back? This ship’s not turning back. It started out to land on the Moon and it’s going to do it.”

  Jet had been extremely patient. Over the last twenty hours he had given no sign that he resented Mitch’s irritability but now, it seemed, the Australian had gone too far. “You know as well as I do,” shouted Jet, “that to attempt to land without accurate details of our position and velocity would be suicide.”

  “We’re not turning back,” repeated Mitch.

  “But what if our speed is too high and we use up too much fuel landing on the Moon? How do we get off again?”

  “We’ve got to take a chance.”

  “Oh no,” said Jet conclusively. “Not that kind of chance. I’m not taking any unnecessary risks with the lives of this crew. If the radio isn’t working within forty-eight hours, we’re turning back. “

  “We’re not turning back.”

  “Am I the captain of this ship or are you?”

  I thought for a moment that Mitch would strike Jet but while he was still thinking about it Jet cut in: “One more word out of you, Mitch, and I’ll put you under arrest.”

  Mitch threw back his head and laughed. “That’s funny, that is. Where do you think you are--at sea? What are you going to do? Put me in irons?”

  I thought it was time I intervened. I got off my bunk and stood between the two men. “Hey Mitch--Jet--break it up,” I told them. “You’re acting like a couple of school kids.”

  Much to my surprise, Jet turned on me. “You stay out of this, Doc. If I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”

  “But, Jet . . .”

  He didn’t let me finish. “Seems we have a case of mutiny on our hands.”

  “Mutiny? That’s great,” Mitch
yelled.

  “What else is it?” demanded Jet. “While I’m captain of this ship you’ll do as I say or take the consequences.”

  That was enough. Mitch didn’t say any more. He just stared sullenly at Jet, breathing heavily. Now Jet saw he had control of the situation, he became calmer. “Right,” he said, “we’ll forget it. But if I decide to go back, we go back. Is that clear?”

  Mitch nodded his head, almost imperceptibly.

  “Now,” went on Jet, “get out the navigation tables. Then go over to the astrodome and start taking bearings. Maybe having something to do will make you feel better.”

  It was not the time to say so but I’d been thinking that all along. Had Jet ordered Mitch to take our bearings in the first place, this somewhat ugly scene might well have been avoided. Mitch, still rather reluctantly, set to work.

  Jet turned to me. “Doc, you give me a hand, will you?”

  “Yes, Jet,” I said; “what at?”

  “At getting a rough idea of our distance from Earth with the help of the radar. It won’t be all that accurate but it’ll be better than nothing.”

  An hour later Jet took our findings across to where Mitch was still figuring. I moved over to Lemmy who, I knew, must be feeling more depressed than any of us, and certainly in need of a little encouragement.

  “How you doing, Lemmy?” I said as I approached him.

  “Oh, hullo, Doc,” he replied. “I’m putting it all together again now, and hoping.”

  “Can I be of any help?”

  “Yes, Doc. You can pass me a few things as I ask for them. But be careful--one touch and they go shooting all over the place. Talk about light and airy like a fairy.” I was pleased that, in spite of everything, Lemmy had not lost his good humour.

  “I’ll be careful,” I told him.

  “Then hand me that for a start,” he said. I passed a screwdriver over to him.

  “Ta,” he said as he reached out for it. “And how’s the mutiny going?”

  “Oh, they seem to have forgotten it now. They’ve got enough trouble on their hands, trying to work out our position.”