"Campbell, John W. - The Moon is Hell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

John W. Campbell is the author of the following Ace books.- THE BLACK STAR PASSES THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE THE MOON IS HELL by John W. Campbell ace books A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036 John W. Campbell is the author of the following Ace books.- THE BLACK STAR PASSES THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE THE MOON IS HELL by John W. Campbell ace books A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036 Copyright 1951 by John W. Campbell, Jr.

"The Elder Gods" copyright 1939 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.

First Ace printing: January, 1973 Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS THE MOON Is HELL!

Prologue The Fight For Air The Fight For Food Epilogue THE ELDER GODS PROLOGUE FIFTEEN MEN in shining, bulky air-tight suits stood beside the great hull that had brought them across a quarter of a million miles of space, and landed them at last on this airless satellite world. Warm golden light still shone from the windows of the giant machine, the greatest rocket ship Earth had ever produced. Harsh, electric-blue sunlight glinted on the jet-shadowed spires of the crater wall beyond. In the near foreground was the cracked, pitted surface of a crater-bottom, scarred and broken by ages-old moon-quakes, fading into a horizon strangely near, made jagged by incredibly rugged crater walls. And above, in a star studded sky hung a blue-white ball of fire, the unshielded sun. There was no air here; warmth was only where the sun was. Night was everywhere, hidden from the blue light of the sun in every shadow.

The fifteen men were grouped about a metal structure they were rapidly raising from a barren, level mass of rock. When it was completed, a bedraggled American flag hung limp in the airless space. In forty-eight hours it would be a piece of white bunting, bleached colorless by the violent light of this place. Later they were to replace the limp-hanging cloth with a sheet of painted metal.

But now they had other work. Dr. James Harwood Garner was the leader of this party of carefully chosen men, and in the name of the United States of America, he claimed the so-called dark half of the moon. Half a world! Millions, tens of millions of square miles of utterly barren surface, surface never seen by Terrestrian eyes, save when, five years before, Capt. Roger Wilson had circumnavigated the moon twice, landing for two brief days on the Earthward side, and had claimed that.

But unlike the earlier party, these men were here for continuous exploration, and not for two days, but for two full yearsl Their orders read: "On June 10, the ship will leave from Inyokern, California, Earth, arriving at Lima June 15. One circuit of the satellite will be made, and a landing made as near the center of the "dark side" as possible. Explorations will be conducted and data collected for one year and eleven months. On May 10,1981, a relief ship will take off from Mojave, California, Earth, proceeding directly to the camp on Luna, landing as near to the dome as practicable. For one month both parties will remain on the satellite, then the return shall be made, starting June 15, and arriving at Lake Michigan, Earth, on June 20."

This first ship came out, loaded with the tons of supplies and instruments that must last the men two full years. So great was the load of oxygen and food, that no fuel for the return could be carried. Hence the need for the relief ship, carrying oxygen and food for but fifteen days for the total crew of both ships, seventeen men in all. The men were to weigh "an average of 153.5 pounds. Two thousand pounds of instruments, samples, photographs, and materials may be returned. Under any circumstances the comparative-reading instruments (instruments whose value was lost if experiments conducted with them on Luna were not repeated with the same instruments on Earth) shall be brought back."

From the squat, pointed cylinder, heavy leads were run, while other men set up powerful electric winches. Electric wrenches and tools were brought out. Inside the ship motors were pumping the atmosphere back into the tanks from which it came. Presently the trained crew fell to work, and rapidly the entire machine was unbolted, the gaskets between the plates laid to one side, and the numbered pieces piled in order. Only the low, round battery-house remained untouched; this was the base of the original ship, housing the batteries that would supply heat and h'ght during the two-week long lunar nights. Now the winches began work again, and rapidly the pieces from the hull were transformed into a new "shape, assembled till they made a huge, polished dome, with five small windows set in it. Within it were the bunks, stove, supplies, tanks of oxygen and water, air purifiers--all the equipment and supplies of the original ship, converted into this more spacious dome.

Beyond the battery house and the Dome, a series of racks were set up, and on them huge photo-cells that soon began pouring energy from the sun, converted into electricity, into the batteries. Camp was made. Ten hours had elapsed, and now the men retired to the dome, and turned the air from the tanks into it. In another hour the pressure and heat within were normal, and a meal was under way, their first on the Moon.

Sleep now--then the two years' work was begun. It was during the lunar night that most of the exploration was done. "During the days," wrote Dr. Thomas Ridgely Dun-can, "we are constantly oppressed by the monotony. It is a time of rest, and repairing things that need no repairing. The heat from the sun is absolutely unbearable, the rocks are hot enough to melt tin, even lead. The entire world is bathed in burning heat. The suits cannot radiate enough to cool, and perspiration does no good. We'are continually subject to sunstroke, and have to remain in the dome.

"At night the work begins. The sun sinks, and the great barren surface cools. Starlight, far brighter than starlight of earth, gives a slight general illumination while our suit lamps supply more. But little battery heat is needed, and wide exploration is possible. The greatest handicap is the necessity for eating. One cannot eat in a space suit, and one cannot take it off. Oxygen supplies for several days could be carried, but food and particularly water, is the problem."

But explorations were carried on. During the day the two mineralogists, the two chemists and the photographer were busy. The little astro-physicist, Melville, was busy day and night. The magnification possible on the airless moon threw him into a terrible despondency, because he had only two three inch telescopes, the greatest weight he had been allowed, and their light gathering power did not permit him the magnification he wanted. So Duncan and Bender and Whisler working together, made a twenty-inch reflector of fused quartz, and with this Melville succeeded in getting photographic maps of the famous "ca-nali" of Mars for the first time, maps that proved them not canals, but tidal swamps, caused by the cross drag and pull of the two satellites of the planet and the Sun.

The others had little to do during the day. Birthdays were celebrated; and the Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years Day, all were feast days.

Two light tractor-treaded trucks were included in the equipment. The chassis and treads of the trucks had originally been landing gear for the great rocket, 'and their engines had served as air pumps and fuel pumps. Every piece of equipment had served dually on the rocket. Assembled on Luna, they carried the men further afield, and did heavy work.

But "There is little to do. We know all the motion pictures now, every move of every film. Only our own new films are of interest. TJiere is no radio here, since the airless moon has no Heaviside layer to bring the waves 10 about the curve that hides Earth from us. We can neither send nor receive from Earth. It is nearly 1500 miles to the nearest point where earth is visible, and therefore reachable. We are thrown back half a century in time to the period when explorers were cut off from other men.

"Our little helmet radios work fairly well up to a distance of about five miles, further if we are atop a ridge. The powerful tractruck sets can reach some twenty miles broadcast from a ridge top. But the curve of the Moons surface makes real ranges impossible--it brings the messages too far underground."

Cut off from humanity by distance and solid rock as they were, it is no wonder they welcomed the night's work. Most of the exploration was done by foot, rather than tractruck, since men afoot could "make better time over the incredibly jagged rock, and the frequent chasms. We can leap fifty to seventy-five feet easily, and the trac-trucks can't. Future expeditions should develop a mechanical grasshopper, perhaps on the order of an inverted catapult with powerful steel springs, cocked and released by an engine. Nothing else can move far here. Airplanes cannot be used, of course, where there is no air. Small rocket ships can't be supplied with fuel."

Still the tractrucks could carry the men further, as the hard working explorers needed greater oxygen supplies.

There is little of interest that has not been made public already. Perhaps a few of Duncan's weather reports are most interesting, best give a picture of that cruel, dead world. "The mercury thermometer was left outside accidentally, and has been broken. We were alarmed at breakfast by an inexplicable boom from the Dome walls. We rushed out to see what had caused it, and found that the rising sun Iwd struck the mercury bulb, blackened to register in this airless place, and had quickly raised it to tfo boiling point. The explosion had caused the sound."

J Again he reports of a lunar pre-dawn. "Winter here now. We hadn't believed it would make any difference, but apparently it does. We cannot notice it; it is always cold or hot. Nothing is moderate. The chasms are terrifically deep, and terrifically abrupt. The craters are gigantic, and their walls miles in height. It is either utterly cold or utterly hot."

The sensation of constant fall, which Duncan mentions at first, left them as they became accustomed to the lesser gravity. Their muscles did not weaken as had been feared. Instead they grew stronger from the heavy work. Yet the weight charts that Dr. Hughey, the expedition's surgeon, prepared read like kindergarten records. Duncan, in prime condition the beginning of the second year, was recorded as weighing 31 pounds! Dr. Hughey reports he was weighed on a spring balance hooked through his belt, and supported at arms length by one of the men. Yet that means a normal Earth-weight of very nearly 186 pounds. Then late in the second year came the first fatality. Duncan writes, "Today we had our first tragedy. In but two months we will be leaving; and Morrison and Wilcott would have gone with us. They were exploring near North Chasm in tractruck No. 2, and the edge broke away under the weight of the machine. The chasm is over half a mile deep, and they were precipitated to the floor below.