Journey Into Space

by Charles Chilton

  “Didn’t you inspect the power pack, Lemmy?” asked Jet.

  “Of course I did,” replied Lemmy indignantly.

  “Well, we’d better get down into the hold and check it again. Get the tool pack out of the locker.” Lemmy started to climb out of his bunk. “And get Mitch’s flashlight and mine, too.” “Yes, Jet,” said Lemmy meekly.

  “And Doc, go round to every control and switch it off. Break every circuit and keep it open until we get back.”

  Much to Lemmy’s disgust, Jet, taking Mitch with him, went down into the hold to inspect the power pack himself. Lemmy and I waited up in the cabin; we were still waiting four hours later.

  “How much longer are they going to be?” Lemmy said at last.

  “Give them time,” I told him. “Dismantling the power pack is a tricky job and it can’t be done in five minutes.’“

  “But they’ve never taken this long to check it before.”

  “It’s never packed in before,” I reminded him.

  Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps ascending the iron ladder. A moment later Jet’s head popped out of the hole.

  “Well, Jet?” I asked.

  “Nothing wrong,” he said, “so far as we can tell.”

  Lemmy’s face lit up. “Well, thank goodness for that,” he said. “Shall I start switching on again?”

  “Nothing wrong,” repeated Jet, “but she doesn’t work.”

  “Huh?” said Lemmy, unable to believe his ears.

  “She’s as dead as a doornail.” Jet sat down, wearily. Then Mitch came up the ladder.

  “Is that right, Mitch?” I queried.

  “Yes, Doc,” he said as he stepped on to the cabin floor. “It beats me.”

  “The fault must be somewhere else,” said Jet. “Up here in the cabin.”

  “The main distributor board?” I suggested.

  “Maybe. We’ll look at that next, anyway. And while we’re about it you and Lemmy had better start checking your own control boards. See if you find any trouble there.”

  The new inspection went on for more than an hour, and at the end of it the only conclusion we could come to was that everything should be working but wasn’t. All our efforts had proved was that everything was intact but lacked the power necessary to bring it to life. We stood there in the centre of the cabin in the pale light of the one flashlamp still hanging above Lemmy’s bunk. We were all waiting for Jet’s next move. There wasn’t one. All he said was: “Well, gentlemen, until we trace the trouble we’re stuck, stranded. We can’t take off. We can’t even go outside--the airlock doesn’t work either.”

  “Blimey.”

  “Then what do we do?” I asked.

  Jet took a deep breath. “Look again,” he said. “We’ll go over every inch of the ship with a fine tooth-comb. Unless we find what’s wrong and put it right, we’ll be here forever.”

  And so the long, weary round of check and counter-check began a second time, and then a third, and then a fourth. Forty-eight hours later we were still at it and no nearer a solution for all our trouble. I thought it was time we took a rest and told Jet so.

  “How can we?” he asked.

  “We’ve already taken some of the equipment to pieces a dozen times,” I reminded him. “At least let two of us sleep. Let’s work on a shift system or something.”

  Jet saw the wisdom of my suggestion. “All right,” he said. “You and Mitch. Lemmy and I will carry on. We’ll wake you up in four hours.”

  But twelve hours later we were still in exactly the same position. If there were any traceable fault it had completely escaped us.

  “I don’t think there’s any point in going over everything again,” said Jet, finally. “We’ll wear out the equipment just by continually taking it to pieces.”

  “Then what do we do?” said Mitch. “Sit and twiddle our thumbs?”

  “A rest from it will do us all good. Give us time to think. Maybe coming back fresh to the problem in another twelve hours or so might help solve it.”

  “In any case,” I said, “we can’t go on sweating our insides out. We’ve got to watch the oxygen supply.”

  “How much oxygen have we got?” asked Jet.

  “At a guess,” I told him, “enough for nearly twenty more days.”

  “Is that all?”

  When we left Earth it had seemed plenty: five days’ trip to the Moon, fourteen days on its surface and five days back again. Twenty-four days in all. We had brought more than we needed, of course, as a safety margin but the supply was limited. Unless we could take off within fourteen days, we wouldn’t have enough oxygen left to last the journey back to Earth.

  “How about food?” asked Jet.

  I had that figured, too. “Normal rations would last about as long as the oxygen,” I told him, “but both could be eked out over a slightly longer period if we’re careful.”

  Jet decided to prepare for the worst. The way things were we might search the ship for a week and not find the fault. He had no intention of giving up, of course, but it was obvious that a system had to be worked out if we were to conserve the food and oxygen supply. It was decided to make thorough checks every eight hours. The rest of the time, except when food was distributed and eaten, we would lie on our bunks.

  “One flashlight will remain on the control table,” said Jet as he outlined the plan to us, “but it will be turned on only when needed, namely for the checks and for Doc to write his diary.”

  “Doc’s diary,” protested Mitch. “Is that so important that we have to waste valuable light on it?”

  “One flashlight lasts quite a time,” Jet reminded him. “Besides, now the recorder’s out of action, Doc’s notes will have to serve as the log. Now on to your bunks, all of you, and let’s get the rota worked out for a start.”

  The next few days were quite the most harrowing I have ever spent. I will let my journal speak for itself:

  November 12th 1965. It is now 24 days since we left Earth. 19 days since we landed on the Moon’s surface, and 5 days since we tried to get off again. By now everybody, including Mitch, has resigned himself to waiting and hoping. Every few hours the radio, radar, televiewer and other installations are switched on in the hope that power has returned to the ship. So far the result has been negative. The rest of the time, except for whoever’s turn it is to regulate the oxygen supply or distribute the rations, we spend lying on our bunks. The only illumination is the one flashlamp which burns over the control table. It doesn’t throw much light around the cabin and most of it is in deep shadow--only the blank, expressionless faces of the dials and gauges staring dimly at us from the darkness that is the wall. The dull gleam of the metal that goes to make up the concave roof reflects what light reaches it, enabling us to make out, very faintly, the door that leads to the little pilot’s cabin in the ship’s nose--the cabin which Jet would have entered to pilot the ship through the Earth’s atmosphere on our return journey. If we could open that door and slide back the shutters that cover the air-tight window, we would see the surface of the Moon, bathed in the pale, reflected earthlight--perhaps even the Earth itself. But, as with the hatch and the airlock, we have no power to open that door, so it remains shut--immovable. The time drags. Talking would make it slip by quickly, but the quicker it passes the sooner the end, whatever it may be, will be reached. We are all outwardly calm, occasionally we make jokes, rather feeble jokes, but the reaction to them is always very good. Every man lives in fear of the others detecting that he may be--no matter how slightly--afraid.

  During the oxygen check and food distribution the flashlight was left on for one hour. This gave us the opportunity to eat and to do anything else we wished while the light was still at our disposal. I filled in my journal. Mitch and Jet read their books. Lemmy looked at the photograph of his girl or played his mouth-organ.

  “Jet,” said Lemmy on one occasion, “how can you read a book at a time like this?”

  “What else is there to do? Wh
ile the light’s on I might as well take advantage of it.”

  Lemmy grunted. He was obviously making conversation purely for the sake of it. “It’s getting perishing hot, isn’t it?” he suddenly exclaimed.

  “With no air conditioner working,” said Mitch, “what else do you expect?”

  Lemmy ignored Mitch. “If only we could open a window,” he said, “if only it were possible to let in some air. I bet it’s cool outside.”

  “Minus 270° centigrade,” observed Mitch, “if you can call that cool. You’d freeze solid the moment you put a foot outside.”

  Lemmy went on, half to himself. “I wonder what the boys back in Australia are thinking? If things had gone as we planned it would be only a few hours now before we’d be home. They’ll be looking out for us; wondering why we didn’t call them again after we said we were going to take-off.”

  “Shut up!” said Mitch.

  “What a way to end up! In a rocket ship that’s supposed to reach 29,000 miles an hour but can’t even raise itself a foot off the ground.” “I said, shut up!” shouted Mitch. “Do you hear?”

  “Lemmy,” I said quietly, “it’s your turn to check the oxygen supply and give out the food.” “Oh. Yes, Doc.” “Here’s the light. Take it.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go on writing for a bit?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “How about you, Jet? You won’t be able to see to read.”

  “I can wait,” said Jet and he put his book face down on the bunk.

  Actually Lemmy’s turn for inspection was not for another fifteen minutes but I thought, under the circumstances, it would do no harm to let him take it a little earlier. He walked over to the control board and called to me over his shoulder: “Oxygen pressure 29.5.”

  “29.5,” I repeated.

  “Temperature 92°.”

  He opened the locker door and chanted quite unnecessarily: “Four flasks of fruit juice, four air-tight sandwich packs.”

  “Give them out, Lemmy.” There was a note of kindness in Jet’s voice. “Then go back to your bunk and try not to talk so much.”

  “Yes, Jet,” said Lemmy meekly.

  November 13th. 6 days. We are now really missing the air conditioner. The heat is almost unbearable, the thermometer standing at over 100°. We have removed most of our clothes and live in our underwear; and we can expect it to get hotter as each hour goes by. Nobody talks very much. Each man gets up, adjusts the oxygen supply and distributes the rations as his turn comes round. Almost the only words we’ve heard these last 2 hours were Jet’s orders when we carried out the tests on the equipment, with the usual result: nothing. Jet reads constantly. Mitch lies on his bunk gazing at the ceiling while Lemmy, who has the bunk above mine, treats us to a musical recital on his harmonica.

  Music can be a great consolation and most of all to the performer. But it can have the opposite effect on an unwilling audience. Lemmy had taken to playing one tune over and over again. It was the sad, old Cockney piece, ‘My Old Dutch’. He dragged out the notes to fantastic lengths, putting all the passion he could into them. It was most trying to listen to and impossible to ignore. Once or twice I almost suggested to Lemmy that he gave the thing a rest, but I knew it was probably his life-line. Unlike Jet, Mitch or myself, he had nothing else to do. At last Mitch could stand it no longer.

  “Lemmy,” he shouted at the top of his voice, “cut out that row, will you?”

  The music stopped abruptly.

  “Blimey,” was the only remark that came from Lemmy’s bunk.

  “Easy, Mitch,” admonished Jet.

  “Easy! Can you stand it? Haven’t we got enough trouble without having that awful row going on all the time?”

  “Who says it’s a row?” objected Lemmy.

  “Why can’t you play something else for a change?”

  “I don’t know anything else,” snapped Lemmy, untruthfully.

  “Then shut up and put the thing away.”

  “Now hold on, Mitch. Two days ago you were only too glad to hear him play.”

  “Well, I’m fed up with it now.”

  “Put it away, Lemmy,” said Jet quietly.

  Lemmy, as always, obeyed him. “But I got to do something to pass the time, Jet,” he protested. “Just lying here hour after hour, sweating and thinking, is enough to give you the pip. Isn’t there something we can do? Test the equipment again or something.”

  “It’s not above an hour since we tested it,” replied Jet.

  I decided to butt in. “Lemmy’s right,” I said. “Lying here in silence is the very devil. We should try to do something collective for short periods. At least it would keep our minds off things for a bit.”

  “How about a nice stroll outside in the earthlight?” said Mitch sarcastically.

  7 days. The heat gets worse. Temperature is now way above the 100 mark. None of us has hardly a stitch of clothing on and our bunks are damp with perspiration.

  Monotonously the time drags by; equipment check, oxygen supply, rations--and, in between, Jet doing his utmost to keep our spirits up. We must have played every parlour game that was ever invented. We lie in the dark and fire questions at each other on general knowledge. We no longer know or care whether the answers are right. And we take turns at reciting verses. It gives us something to do and takes our minds off the inevitable climax which slowly but relentlessly approaches. For, unless life returns to the ship within the next 6 days, it must be the end of us all.

  We were playing Twenty Questions. “That’s fourteen points to me,” said Mitch. “Right, Lemmy, your turn.” Lemmy thought for a moment. “Er--animal,” he said. “Four legs?” asked Jet. “No.”

  “Two legs?” I suggested.

  “No legs.”

  “No legs?” Mitch queries.

  “No legs and it’s mineral.”

  “But you just said it was animal.”

  “It’s mineral,” said Lemmy desperately.

  “Manufactured?”

  Lemmy’s voice became panicky. “And big, like a huge doughnut.”

  “Is it manufactured?”

  “Made of metal, with a dome where the hole should be.”

  “Lemmy,” said Jet with apprehension in his voice.

  “There’s a blue light flashing on and off underneath--and it’s coming here.”

  “Lemmy!” yelled Jet, trying to bring the radio operator under control.

  “It’s coming, I tell you. It’s right on us.”

  “Jet,” I cried, “the televiewer. It’s glowing, it must be working.”

  Jet swung his legs over the edge of his bunk and dropped to the floor but misjudged his fall and, as he landed, sent the flashlamp flying. As it hit the floor it went out.

  There was light enough coming from the screen now for us to see each other dimly. Mitch and I were quickly out of our bunks and, joining Jet at the control table, went over to get a closer look at the picture.

  “Good Lord, what on earth is it?” asked Mitch.

  “It looks like it’s floating, flying,” said Jet, “and the light --the flashing light underneath it--just as Lemmy described.”

  Then whatever it was passed out of view.

  “It’s gone,” said Jet.

  “But the screen’s still alive,” I pointed out. “You can still see the stars and . . . oh.”

  Even as I spoke the picture began to fade and within a few moments we were in total darkness again.

  “You could see the stars,” said Mitch.

  Jet’s one thought now was for Lemmy. He groped his way over to his bunk, at the same time calling: “Lemmy, are you all right?”

  “What’s happened to him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jet replied. “Try to find the flashlight.”

  Mitch was already on his knees, groping round the floor for it. “I’ve got it, Jet,” he called.

  “Does it work?”

  “No.”

  “The main lights,” I said; “if the power’s
on, they should come on, too.”

  I could hear Jet climbing up the ladder towards Lemmy’s bunk. “Lemmy, can you hear me? Answer me.”

  Then Mitch’s voice came out of the darkness. “Doc, the light switch just above the control table, can you find it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ve got it.” I pressed it. Nothing happened. No lights came on. The ship was dead again.

  I could hear Mitch fumbling inside the locker as he groped for a second flashlight. Jet’s voice was now coming from above our heads; he had obviously reached Lemmy’s bunk. “Lemmy,” he said gently.

  Lemmy sounded utterly miserable. “Leave me alone.”

  “Lemmy, did you hear? It came on again. The screen was working.”

  Lemmy groaned.

  “Lemmy, what’s happened to you? What is it?”

  “I heard it,” said the Cockney. “That music, I heard it again.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. It was going to be a horse--the one that won last year’s Derby.”

  “What was?”

  “My object. But when I started to answer the questions it all got mixed up and then that music came on and all I could think of was--well, I don’t know what it was now--a kind of. . .”

  “You don’t have to describe it, Lemmy,” said Jet. “We saw it on the televiewer screen. We all saw it.”

  “Eh?”

  “Yes, with a flashing light under it just as you described. It seemed to be flying towards us, then moved up and out of range, almost as though it might have passed right over us.”

  “Ah, that’s better.” Mitch had found a new flashlamp. “What a difference just a little light makes.”

  “The other one out of action, Mitch?” called Jet.

  “Yes, Jet, it hit the floor pretty hard.”

  “Give it to Lemmy,” said Jet. “I expect he can put it right. The rest of us will go round the ship. Carry out another full inspection just in case things are about to start working again.”

  It is now 3 days since the televiewer suddenly burst into life and the picture of the--whatever it was--appeared on it. Since then, the ship has been as dead as it ever was. The heat is now beyond description. We are using up the oxygen supply rapidly. I estimate we have barely enough to last 9 days more, and we need 5 of those days for the return journey to Earth. So we have now only 4 days left--4 days--if we haven’t taken off by then. . .