Marooned on Mars

by Lester Del Rey

  Chuck had always dreamed of leaving Earth, but he’d never seen a rocket take-off or spoken to a man who’d left -the planet until he was nearly fourteen. His father had been head engineer for a small company in the Midwest, and Chuck had been forced to content himself with what he could read about the Moon ships. Then, without warning, his father had announced that he was chosen to work on the big ship being built cm the Moon to reach Mars. Chuck had nearly gone wild at the idea of actually living on the Moon.

  When the novelty had worn off, he’d pestered the construction men into letting him help during his free time away from school. It had seemed enough to be able to help in making it possible for others to go farther to other planets. His mind traced the days and months of watching the ship grow, and his eyes slowly closed.

  They were almost to the Moon when Jeff wakened him. Chuck saw that the ship had already been turned, around with its tiny steering rockets, and now had its jet pointing toward the Lunar surface. In the rear radar screen, the big crater named Albategnius showed he was almost home. The crater’s eighty-mile diameter almost filled the screen, · and the two smaller craters inside it stood out clearly. Moon City lay in the smaller one that the first explorers had nicknamed Bud, and the Mars Expedition construction was going on in the other, known as Junior. Around the flat crater, the run walls that rose for thousands of feet were already shutting out the rest of the Moon, while the central peak seemed to stick straight up toward them. Even the observatory building beside it could be seen.

  Jeff nodded sharply, and cut in the big rocket-jet-to slow their rushing speed. Landing was like take-off, except that it was trickier, since they had to reach zero speed exactly at the moment they touched the surface. Jeff frowned into the screen, and juggled the controls, while the agonizing pressure again caught at Chuck. When it ended, there was hardly a jar as they settled down on the three landing fins.

  “Sweet landing,” Chuck said, and Jeff nodded. It had been an exceptionally smooth one.

  They waited, while the ground below cooled from the heat of the rocket blast. Then there was a tapping sound from the surface of the ship. Jeff fingered a control that would open the outer air-lock door, waited, and sent a signal to close it again. The lock permitted men to enter the ship from the vacuum outside without too much loss of the ship’s air. A moment later, the inner door opened, and Chuck’s father pushed up the hatch to the control room.

  He was wearing a suit that looked like a diver’s, with a transparent globular helmet over his head, which he now threw back. In his arms were suits for Jeff and Chuck. His tanned face broke into a wide grin, and his big, booming voice seemed to shake the little room.

  “Chuck! Boy, you look like a million. Welcome home!”

  “Hi, Dad!” Chuck’s throat caught as his father grabbed him in one arm, squeezing him briefly. Then he grinned back. “I passed! Dad, I can go to Mars!”

  The smile slipped from William Svensen’s face, and his eyes darted suddenly toward Jeff Foldingchair. The pilot avoided the look and shrugged helplessly. “I told him the ship would take off two days early,” he said uncomfortably. “I figured he knew when his birthday was. Oh, heck, Svensen, I couldn’t really tell him!”

  Chuck dropped back weakly toward the mattress. He’d been a dope not to know what it meant. Nobody could leave on the ship for Mars until he was eighteen and Chuck’s birthday was one day after the new take-off date.

  Svensen shook his head slowly, and one hand fumbled out toward his son, holding the suit. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe we can do something about it Here, get into your suit. Your mother’s waiting at home, and we’d better get going. We’ll talk it over later. Nobody has said you can’t go yet.”

  Chuck hid his head as he fumbled with the suit, trying to keep his father from seeing the sudden tears in his eyes. He knew the older man didn’t think he had a chance!

  CHAPTER 2

  Rocket Ship Eros

  On the Moon’s surface, the sun was blazing down mercilessly, heating the rocks underfoot beyond^ the boiling temperature of water. Only the heavy suits and the helmets which cut off all but visible light made walking possible. Chuck and his father left Jeff behind and headed toward the edge of the smaller crater, where Moon City lay. Here where gravity was only one-sixth that of Earth, their normal walk was a series of twenty-foot leaps that earned them along at better than ten miles an hour.

  In the absence of air, no speech was possible, and Chuck was glad of it. He wanted time to recover from the shock of finding all his hopes were ruined. He followed his father silently, letting his eyes study the inky shadows and glaring high lights of the Lunar landscape.

  They skirted the small group of storage sheds and receiving buildings, from which trucks were heading out toward the rocket ship, and came to the little cogwheel tracks that led down into “Bud.” The electric-powered car was waiting at the stop when Chuck halted for a quick look down into the little crater. Being away for even a few weeks made it all seem new again.

  There wasn’t really much to see. Moon City had been built like the cities of the old cliff-dwellers. The living quarters were hollowed out of the crater rim, well back from the surface. Outside, only a half-dozen air-lock entrances showed, leading into tunnels that served as streets and connected the few shops and the homes. Such construction protected them from the occasional falling, meteorites, and enabled them to live without space suits most, of the time; the air that was baked from chemicals in the rocks was sealed inside.

  All the dwellings were grouped together. Deep in the walls of the opposite side lay the big atomic generators that furnished all their power, arid the chemical laboratories and high-vacuum plants were near by; here almost zero absolute temperature could be had in any shaded section, and a nearly perfect vacuum lay all around them. Such industries were the backbone of their trade with Earth.

  Even their food was grown underground in tanks containing water and chemicals, and these hydroponic gardens were lighted artificially. Sunlight was missing for fourteen days and then was much too intense for the next fourteen. It was easier to regulate fluorescent lighting.

  Svensen tugged at Chuck’s hand, and the boy climbed onto the little tramcar. Two other men in suits had already boarded it—Jose Ibanez from the loading sheds and Abdul ibn Hamet, who worked in the uranium mines—the only uranium deposit discovered on the Moon. Both grinned warmly, and the Arab bent forward to touch helmets with Chuck, so that his words could be heard.

  “Bonan vesperon, amiko,” he greeted. The moon operated on a twenty-four-hour day, in spite of its twenty-eight Earth-day period, and Chuck realized it was already afternoon to them. “Domaĝo, îu ne?”

  Chuck thought it was more than a shame as he returned the greeting. The starting of the little car cut off further comments, though, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was in no mood to discuss his bad luck with anyone yet. He was glad when the two men moved off toward the garden entrance after the car stopped.

  Half a mile away, the entrance to a small one-man air lock marked the “apartment house” where the Svensens lived. Chuck lagged behind, half-dreading the questioning of his eight-year-old sister, Kay. At the lock, he let his father go first, waited until the green light Indicated the lock was clear, and followed uncertainly. When he passed the inner door, his father was stripping off his suit and storing it with the others in the lockers along the walls.

  “I. told them no party tonight,” he told Chuck, as the boy began removing his own suit. “I knew you’d want a little peace. And, Chuck—don’t worry; we won’t talk about the trip for a while. Right?”

  Chuck met his father’s understanding glance, and his voice choked a little. He should have known how they’d take it. ‘Thanks, Dad. But tell me, what did happen?”

  The observatory spotted a small swarm of meteorites that would intercept the ship’s course part way to Mars. They had to refigure it to avoid that, and it worked out-best if the ship left two days sooner. So you lost.
The charter is pretty stiff about the age limits, but Governor Braithwaite is pulling strings, and he may be able to get it stretched that much. After all, they have to have a radar operator…. Come on, supper will be cold.”

  The apartment was on the same level as the tunnel, and they moved toward it. Chuck saw that the door was already open. He let out a yell, and a small, furry dog suddenly shot out at him, wriggling and leaping all over him..

  ‘Tippy! You old rascal. Miss me?”

  “Went crazy looking for you,” Svensen answered. The| little dog had been smuggled to the Moon when he was just a puppy by Jeff Foldingchair two years before, to become one of the six dogs on the Moon. Growing up there, he took Lunar conditions for granted; in fact, he even had a small space suit, complete with a sleeve for his tail. But he still acted like any other dog whose master had left him| too long.

  Then Chuck’s mother was hugging him. Tears were running down her plump, pleasant face, but she only kissed him once quickly, before rushing back into the little-kitchen. His sister was dancing around, her shrill voice cutting through the sound of Tippy’s barking. “Didja bring me a present, Chuck? Did ya, huh?” Chuck located a small box of carefully wrapped chocolates and a second later her mouth was too full for further sounds.

  He turned into his own room to clean up. It was just as he’d left it, with a thin coating of dust over the mess of home-built radar apparatus that filled most of one end and had been his hobby since their arrival here; it must have bothered his mother, but she’d left it undusted, as he’d asked. The only change was an acknowledgment card from an Earth station he had contacted just before leaving.

  He was home, no question about it. He tried to tell bun-self that Jeff was right, and only a fool would want to leave this. But he couldn’t make himself believe it He hardly tasted the dinner his mother had so carefully prepared.

  In the morning, he was still awake when he heard his father getting ready for work. Automatically, Chuck gathered up his work clothes and began dressing. They ate hastily and went out through the air lock, where a little electric tractor was waiting with the other men who were going on the early shift.

  The little tractor carried them onto the cogwheel tram which climbed slowly up to the surface. Then it sped out across the bottom of the big crater toward Junior. There was no tram there to take them down, but an inclined ramp had been built, and they moved down that

  The big rocket ship was nearly completed. The scaffolding had been pulled away, and it stood upright on its three leg-fins. Fully fueled, it would weigh nearly thirty tons by Earth weight—about five tons on. the Moon. It stretched upward to a height of nearly a hundred feet Unlike the smaller rockets, this looked something like a huge flying oil tank. It was sixty feet in diameter at its base, its wings were tiny things, and the points rounded out bluntly. With only the very thin atmosphere of Mars to be fought, it didn’t need streamlining.

  The outer skin was complete, down to the name—Eros. All the main parts inside had been installed. The atomic engine lay above the big rocket tubes; then came the fuel tanks, the hydroponic gardens, and finally the crew quarters and control room. Only a small amount of work remained.

  Chuck turned up to the control room, leaving his father, who was supervising adjustment of the engine. The radar equipment was still in need of work, and the boy had been doing a large part of the installing of that.

  Big Richard Steele, the trip engineer, was already in the control room, testing the air circulation. Chuck barely closed the main hatch as the man threw over the valves. Air hissed in, and the two threw back their helmets. “Hi, Chuck.” The engineer had the rich voice with which many Negroes are blessed. His face was streaked with sweat that glistened against the walnut-brown of his skin, but the lines of fatigue only deepened the calm sureness of his expression. He sniffed the air that was circulating, and nodded approval. “I’ve been here all night getting the raw paint smell worked out, but it’s okay now. Might as well enjoy a little breather outside our helmets. How’s the boy?”

  “Fine, Dick—I guess.”

  “You guess? Oh, that! Well, you’re going, if the rest of us have anything to say. We had a powwow with Governor Braithwaite as soon as we got the news. Didn’t we get you picked for the trip?”

  ‘This is different,” Chuck pointed out. ‘This is a charter rule.”

  The big man nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. But I haven’t heard that they’ve appointed anyone else, and we aren’t going without a radar operator; you can bet on that. This ship is meant for six men, and it’s going to leave with all six. Better close up—I’m pumping the air back.”

  Chuck reached for his helmet snaps as the air began thinning out. Steele watched the meters. Then he slapped Chuck’s back, and went down the hatch.

  Chuck studied the charts of progress made and then began soldering, feeling slightly better. He couldn’t believe there was much chance, but the fact that the others wanted him along killed some of the hurt.

  Then the routine of the work took up his thoughts. Soldering was always a pleasure without air to corrode the cleaned surfaces of the metal. There might be disadvantages to living on a world with no atmosphere, but it had its compensations.

  The second shift man relieved him eventually. He touched helmets with Dick before taking over. “Governor wants to see you. Chuck. Bonan sancon!”

  Chuck found Governor Braithwaite expecting him. The man was almost the perfect picture of a beardless Santa Claus, with a beaming face and a hearty manner that was completely genuine in his case. Now, however, there was concern and worry behind his quick smile of greeting,

  “Bonan tagon. Chuck. I’d have seen you last night, but I knew you’d be tired. I’m deucedly sorry about all this, you know. Now I’ve got a little good news for you—not much, but something, at least”

  Chuck waited, while the Governor fished through his papers. “Oh, bother. Never mind, I know what it said.” He tossed the papers aside, and leaned back. “‘You’re an important young man. The President of your United States has made an official request for the UN to let you go. You made the highest rating of anyone who took the tests for the position, and Earth agrees with me that we on the Moon shouldn’t be neglected. If we can speed up action in the Council, we may get that blasted rule waived yet.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken so much trouble,” Chuck began.

  The Governor cut off his protests with a wave of his hand.

  “Bosh. I’d have a rebellion on my hands if I didn’t, son.” He shook his head slowly. “But I’m not going to give you any false hopes. It will be difficult—very difficult. If we can stall them off in selecting someone else, and if we can cut through enough red tape in the Council, we have a slim chance. The chief trouble is that the next highest man is a young fellow from the United States of Chinese ancestry; naturally the Council’s Chinese Delegate will oppose us.”

  “Just how much chance do I have?” Chuck asked.

  “I wish I knew. I’d sleep better if I did. But chin up, son! We’ll do everything we can. And there’s an old law I can invoke to quarantine the appointee for medical inspection and inoculation. If we don’t get a replacement for the crew tomorrow, I’ll be able to hold him until after the ship leaves for Mars.”

  “You wouldn’t”

  “Wouldn’t I?” Governor Braithwaite chuckled, and| came around the desk to clap Chuck lightly on the shoulder. “I’m a quiet man. Chuck, but just a bit stubborn. You go on home now, and let yourself sleep like a young heathen. We’re all fighting for you.”

  Going down the long tunnel toward his home, Chuck thought it over, and tried to feel that it was now on the laps of the gods. But it was the very uncertainty of his chances that bothered him the most. He stopped at a store to pick up the little newspaper that came out each day and scanned it carefully. Two freighters had come in that day, but there were no passengers. His replacement hadn’t come yet. Then he grinned at his own foolishness; if the man had arrived, Governo
r Braithwaite would have known about it first.

  There was no news that night that he could find by using his radar set. He tossed and turned in his bed, telling himself that quarantining his rival would be an unfair trick, and that he should refuse to take advantage of it. But the fact that he had proved himself to be the best man for the job opposed that; it wasn’t fair to the rest of the crew to take second best, he kept thinking.

  In the morning, going to work, he scanned the bulletins hastily. The Council was meeting, but a question about the order of procedure had taken up all the day before, and Braithwaite’s appeal hadn’t even been mentioned. His eyes looked at the shipping notes. There were no freighters due for the day, and no passengers had come on the late night ship.

  At the Eros, men were still working, but there was very little left to do, and they weren’t worrying much about that. Men clustered together in little groups, touching helmets and conferring busily. Chuck couldn’t take their stares. He went up into the control room and shut the hatch behind him.

  It was only half an hour later when the rich baritone of Dick Steele reached him through the air that now filled the ship. He opened the hatch.

  “News, Chuck. Jeff Foldingchair was pulled down to Earth on emergency orders last night. He’s just landing back here now. We’ll know what’s up in a few minutes.”

  Chuck nodded. He should have known that the Earth administrators would anticipate the Governor’s trick and make sure the replacement was here in plenty of time. He put his tools away neatly.

  “I’m going home, Dick.”

  “I’ll ride you back,” Dick suggested. He snapped down his helmet and went down with Chuck.

  The men pulled back to let them pass. Chuck’s father was one of the few men not in sight, but he stuck his head out of the engine hatch and waved as Chuck climbed onto the tractor. Everyone was trying to look casual, as if nothing were happening, but they all knew what it meant.