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

Long is feeling well, and worked today on the photocells, though he maintained he was perfectly capable of returning to the heavier mine work. Dr. Hughey says that he is best here.

Long tells me he took but one day's supply of food with him. Some one else must have rifled the stores. We all feel hungry, save immediately after meals, but I did not expect that, since our company has been so finely uncomplaining.

June 14.

I made another trip for silver selenide. The lunascape is awesomely wonderful under the early morning sun. Titanic peaks loom up, casting shadows as black and hard as full night. It is a land of blinding light and blinding darkness, with mighty, rugged chasms on every side, and only bare, jagged rock underfoot. The passage from light to shade is accompanied by a sudden fierce chill that seems to bite through in a moment, then the welcome heat of the battery dispels it.

Returning, dragging the tractor-wheeled sledge loaded with ore, the sheen of the dome is a beacon, the only brilliantly metallic sheen in all this land of rugged, waste rock. Not a spindle of grass, no hint of shrub, nor fallen leaf. Not even sand, only jagged, harsh rock.

It seemed vicious to us at first. Now, like the desert to its prospectors, it is beautiful for its fierce harshness, clean and naked and unashamed under a blazing, blue-white sun.

But it is a relief to get back to the Dome. And more of a relief, after remembering the night of chill we have passed, in watching the meters that record the steady, powerful flow of energy coming from the photo-pells.

June 15.

Today marks our second year on Luna. . We had planned to take off today, for the return trip. The crumpled wreck of the relief ship seems to mock us. It has been investigated time and again, and not a vestige of any useful article has been found. The burning fuel destroyed everything.

We have been forced to look for glass-making materials. Our supply of glass is running low, and we need quartz glass for the photocells. The hydrogen has been helpful in making them, for the flame is easier to work with, and Moore and Tolman have installed a reconden-sation apparatus which collects water from the air passing through the purifiers. It is electrolyzed for oxygen.

More food has been stolen from the storehouse. It is curious that no one sees this, as it is light at all times now. But all the men are tired from their work.

June 16.

Fate has turned ironical. Rice, searching for quartz crystals for the tubes, brought in some magnificent, clear crystals, and said there was a' considerable bed of them, enough to last some time. Had it been quartz, we would have been lucky, for the crystals are clear as water. They are diamonds, most of them large as my fist. They are utterly and completely useless to us, as they cannot be worked in any way.

No suitable quartz supply has been found.

The gypsum pile is diminishing, despite the continued activity of the miners, and the oxygen pressure in the tanks is rising steadily.

I have been interested in the psychology of the story tellers of the interplanetary round-robbin. The ship has gone to Pluto now, where it is exceedingly cold, but their power is endless. Oxygen is found frozen in glaciers, and may be chopped off with axes or explosives. Kendall, who has been working at the mine told the story tonight. It's Rice's turn tomorrow night. He will spend the day searching for quartz, and I have a half-hope he doesn't find it to see what his story will be.

June 17.

We should have been sighted from Earth today. Interplanetary schedules are exact, and our non-arrival will probably start discussion.

Funds for the building of a relief ship will have to be raised by public subscription, to a total of approximately three millions. I fear it will be slow coming in.

Work continued today hopefully. The oxygen and hydrogen tanks are filling ever more rapidly, for more photocells are constantly being added. Reed is now able to run two furnaces and is electrolyzing faster. The pile of gypsum is nearly gone.

The hunt for quartz has been unsuccessful. The one thing we need beyond all others, the basic need, is power, and without the quartz we will be helpless to install the proposed electrical machinery at the gypsum mine.

Rice carried on the round-robbin tonight, and the interplanetary travellers landed on the warm-belt of Neptune. Neptune's warm belt is caused by its satellite, which is a solid globe of crystal quartz, and which acts as a burning glass to warm the planet.

June 18.

Long has made another proposal, which I can back with my full agreement. Money must be raised by public subscription, and a ship built. The building will take at least four months, and Earth knows we have supplies but for one month more at most. That we have a new supply of oxygen and water they do not know. People will hesitate to give money for a cause lost before it begins. If some word is sent, telling that we have oxygen at least, the aid may be hastened.

His new plan is that twelve men start from the Dome, all but three burdened with oxygen tanks, these three travelling light. At the end of one day, one oxygen-unit's distance, six men will turn back, caching all the oxygen they carried, save one tank apiece for the return. The remaining six will continue, again three heavily loaded, three going light. At the end of that twenty-four hour run, three will turn back, caching all their oxygen save one tank apiece. These will return to the first stop, sleep there for the first time on the trip, then return with one new tank. The remaining three, hitherto unloaded, will sleep at this farthest cache for twelve hours, then carrying four units of oxygen, a small photocell bank for power, a converter-transformer, and a powerful portable radio, will make a dash for the visible border.