Read Ebook: They Reached for the Moon by Oberfield William McCauley Harold W Harold William Illustrator

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Ebook has 104 lines and 6339 words, and 3 pages

They Reached For The Moon

The major problem in achieving space flight lay in overcoming gravity. That had been done and men had reached the Moon. But strangely, they never returned!

They took a thousand days to build the great, gleaming monster, and another two hundred to groom it for its trip around the moon. All this they did with an air that made a trip to the moon seem quite natural and sure, even though three other rockets had gone before and not one had returned.

"This one will," they said, as though convincing themselves.

"A military base on the moon!" the leaders had cried. And that had been that. Robot rockets had gone first. They had landed on the moon. They could do that, but they could not establish the desired base. So men had started on a round trip, around the moon, first to prove that men could do it. The only thing they proved was that whatever goes up need not come down.

Now the fourth rocket waited, leaning over against its heavy launching rack, ready to face whatever unknown danger lay out there beyond.

On a certain night, a night long appointed, one overshadowed with heavy clouds that brought a threat of rain, there were lights about the rocket and in the low, concrete buildings that cowered back a ways from the upright metal giant. Around the base of the rocket men scurried like ants, making last minute preparations and seeing that everything was just so and not being satisfied with "good enough".

In one building, a little nearer the rocket than the others, two men lounged, talking of the coming trip and other things that concerned last night's women, and smoking endlessly, the last smokes they would have for four days. These men would soon climb into a long, metal thing and try to do what others had failed to do.

In other buildings were men with great ideas held firmly in their minds, doing things with pencils and paper and adding machines. These checked back over figures and charts, knowing all the time that everything was flawless, but checking just the same. Some were Army men and some were not.

The feeling that seemed to grow over everything was one of waiting and suspense, and one might know without asking, without seeing the many glances at watches and clocks, that it would soon be time.

Strangely, the two men waiting and speaking mostly of wine, women and general good times, knew very little of the import of what they were about to do. In fact, they had no real concept of even the size of the earth, let alone the magnitude of space, the moon and the stars. This, however, was as intended.

This, of course, was at most a poor explanation. But it served, at least, as an excuse for retaining the great minds and sending those more expendable. These, not knowing, would probably consider the whole thing nothing more than a slightly unusual adventure.

So when the Army officers came, very stiff and orderly, and opened the door to the little building, the two men came out laughing and pushing at one another playfully. They followed the little group of officers toward the gleaming rocket, not at all worried, like men going off for a happy spree at some local bar.

The rocket seemed to loom higher as they neared it. It was now bathed in the light of many spotlights, reflecting back the light in such a way that one might think he would go blind if he looked too long. Only when they stepped on to a platform, with two of the higher officers, and were lifted swiftly upward, did they give a thought to what was going on.

The platform halted its climb just below a round hole near the nose of the rocket.

"You men should know exactly what you are to do," said the higher officer, "and that is not much. You are not, under any circumstances, to touch anything until you near the moon. Up to that time, the rocket will be guided by at least one control station here on Earth." The officer paused and tried to see understanding in the eyes of the two. He was one of those who did not agree with sending such dense fellows.

"You have been trained for months," he continued, "to read a few instruments and to perform the fairly simple tasks required to take you around the moon and start you back. Do only what you have been taught. Do nothing more. You must remember that certain conditions near the moon, which interfere with radio reception, and which we have been unable to overcome, will put you entirely on your own until you start back."

One of the men, a little uncertain, acted as if he wished to speak.

"Yes?" said the officer.

"Didn't they send rockets once without no men in 'em at all?" he asked. "Then, how come they can't do like we wasn't even there?"

"My dear fellow," said the officer, perplexed, "to aim and fire a rocket at so near and so large a target as the moon is a simple matter. To guide one around the moon in a precise orbit is a matter entirely different." He paused. "Any more questions?"

"No sir," said the men.

"Very good." The officer seemed glad there would be no further conversation. "In you go now."

The men went into the opening, helped by the officers, like olives being put into a bottle. In a moment the officers had gone and a cover had been placed into the opening and screwed firmly into place.

There was lead-glass, very heavy, in the windows of all the buildings. The thick cement walls and doors were covered with sheets of lead.

Inside the most distant buildings, at the small windows, men stood with black looking glasses over their eyes, watching. Each time a rocket went into space it was exactly thus. The atomic drive was new and not completely perfect. Always there was a chance that something might go wrong. The radiation grids could go haywire, there could be an explosion, or the ship could falter and slip on the way up.

So the men waited and watched in their little buildings, with fingers crossed, hoping for the best.

Now it was very quiet. The spotlights had been extinguished because every bit of electric power was needed to start the amazing rocket motor. Only enough was spared for lighting, where needed, in the buildings, and for the P.A. system. And over the P.A. system voices spoke.

"Trackers ready?"

"Trackers ready."

"Control station ready?"

"Control station ready."

"Radio room, report!"

"Radio reporting. All tracking and control stations reported or relayed in."

There was a pause. Then: "Stand by." The silence seemed to grow even more intense. The ticking of clocks and watches could be heard. The unreal atmosphere of a dream settled over the clustered buildings on the plain.

"Activators!"

Out on the plain, the rocket came to life. It surged and clattered against its launching rack, nearly leaping, pawing the ground with hot explosive blasts. Now it became a living wild thing, a bound monster surging against its chains, fighting to be free and away.

The voice, in a short while, came again, a little strained. "Ready.... Ready.... Ready.... ROCKET AWAY!"

The great, gleaming monster lifted up from the plain, bellowing its defiance of space with the voice of ten thousand waterfalls. It rode up from the center of a tremendous flower of glowing dust on a pillar of intense blue flame, slowly gathering speed, like a whale rushing up from the depths of the ocean.

For a while it lighted up miles of rolling plain with its glare, and sent its thunder out to crash against distant hills. Then it was gone beyond heavy clouds, leaving only a smear of light above and a hollow, boiling rumble, muted by distance.

In the thin, cold air above the clouds the rocket pointed its sharp nose eastward. It raced across the sky, a blue streaking and a stuttering scream. It crossed a nation with amazing speed and moved over the Atlantic.

In an instant the moon and the stars were gone and the rocket was looking at the sun. Clear morning fled away in fear of this flaming beast and it was noon within minutes after sunrise. In an hour the night returned, the stars and the moon with it.

"Brother, we're in!" cried Pfc. Walter Jones, in the head of the rocket. "Boy, the babes'll mob us after this. Real big shots, that's us. The men in the moon! Hah!"

"If we get back," Pvt. Robert Moore shouted over the roar. "Remember, we gotta get back yet."

"Chicken!" shouted Jones. "Chicken's what you are!"

"Oh yeah? So what happens to them guys what went before?"

"Nuts to that," Jones sneered. "I hear they's a lot of places up in space we don't know nothin' about, where there's maybe a lot of nice babes and buildings made out of gold and stuff like that."

"Scientists don't go much for babes," Moore said.

Jones kicked back in his seat, roaring laughter. "Hah! Don't kid yourself, son. Anyway, so what? So they get a chance to be kings, or somethin', on account of being from Earth. What do they do? They stay an' be kings, natch'!"

"It ain't for me," said Moore, moodily. "I know babes on good ol' Earth. An' who wants to be king?"

"That's what I'm tellin' you," Jones shouted. "We ain't got no worry at all. All we gotta do is not let them guys up there sidetrack us."

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