A Fall of Moondust (20 page)

The whole thing was done so neatly that it looked like a conjuring trick. Sue took—or
seemed to take—the tube from the unresisting fingers, but as she did so she must have
jolted it against Mrs. Williams. The lady never knew what had happened; she quietly
folded up and joined her husband.

Half the company was unconscious now; on the whole, thought Pat, there had been remarkably
little fuss. Commodore Hansteen had been too much of a pessimist; the riot squad had
not been necessary, after all.

Then, with a slight sinking feeling, he noticed something that made him change his
mind. It looked as if, as usual, the Commodore had known exactly what he was doing.
Miss Morley was not going to be the only difficult customer.

It was at least two years since Lawrence had been inside an igloo; there was a time,
when he had been a junior engineer out on construction, what it was like to be surrounded
by rigid walls. Since those days, of course, there had been many improvements in design;
it was now no particular hardship to live in a home that would fold up into a small
trunk.

This was one of the latest models—a Goodyear Mark Twenty—and it could sustain six
men for an indefinite period, as long as they were supplied with power, water, food
and oxygen. The igloo would provide everything else—even entertainment, for it had
a built-in microlibrary of books, music and video. This was no extravagant luxury,
though the auditors queried it with great regularity. In space, boredom could be a
killer. It might take longer than say, a leak in an airline—but it could be just as
effective, and was sometimes much messier.

Lawrence stooped slightly to enter the air-lock. In some of the old models, he remembered,
you practically had to go down on hands and knees. He waited for the ‘pressure equalised’
signal, then stepped into the hemispherical main chamber.

It was like being inside a balloon; indeed, that was exactly where he was. He could
see only part of the interior, for it had been divided into several compartments by
movable screens. (Another modern refinement; in
his
day, the only privacy was that given by the curtain across the toilet.) Overhead,
three metres above the floor, were the lights and the air-conditioning grille, suspended
from the ceiling by elastic webbing. Against the curved wall stood collapsible metal
racks, only partly erected. From the other side of the nearest screen came the sound
of a voice reading from an inventory, while every few seconds another interjected
“Check”.

Lawrence stepped around the screen and found himself in the dormitory section of the
igloo. Like the wall-racks, the double-bunks had not been fully erected; it was merely
necessary to see that all the bits and pieces were in their place, for as soon as
the inventory was completed everything would be packed and rushed to the site.

Lawrence did not interrupt the two storemen as they continued their careful stocktaking.
This was one of those unexciting but vital jobs—of which there were so many on the
Moon—upon which lives could depend. A mistake here could be a sentence of death for
someone, sometime in the future.

When the checkers had come to the end of a sheet, Lawrence said, “Is this the largest
model you have in stock?”

“The largest that’s serviceable,” was the answer. “We have a twelve-man Mark Nineteen,
but there’s a slow leak in the outer envelope that has to be fixed.”

“How long will that take?”

“Only a few minutes. But then there’s a twelve-hour inflation test before we’re allowed
to check it out.”

This was one of those times when the man who made the rules had to break them.

“We can’t wait to make the full test. Put on a double patch and take a leak-reading;
if it’s inside the standard tolerance, get the igloo checked out right away. I’ll
authorise the clearance.”

The risk was trivial, and he might need that big dome in a hurry. Somehow, he had
to provide air and shelter for twenty-two men and women out there on the Sea of Thirst.
They couldn’t all wear spacesuits, from the time they left
Selene
until they were ferried back to Port Roris.

There was a ‘beep-beep’ from the communicator behind his left ear. He flicked the
switch at his belt and acknowledged the call.

“C.E.E. speaking.”

“Messages from
Selene
, Sir,” said a clear, tiny voice. “Very urgent—they’re in trouble.”

Until now, Pat scarcely noticed the man who was sitting with folded arms in window
seat 3D, and had to think twice to remember his name. It was something like Builder—that
was it,
Baldur
, Hans Baldur. He had looked the typical quiet tourist who never gave any trouble.

He was still quiet, but no longer typical—for he was remaining stubbornly conscious.
At first sight he appeared to be ignoring everything around him, but the twitching
of a cheek muscle betrayed his tenseness.

“What are you waiting for, Mr. Baldur?” asked Pat, in the most neutral tone that he
could manage. He felt very glad of the moral and physical support ranged behind him;
Baldur did not look exceptionally strong, but he was certainly more than Pat’s moonborn
muscles could have coped with—if it came to that.

Baldur shook his head, and remained staring out of the window for all the world as
if he could see something there beside his own reflection.

“You can’t make me take that stuff, and I’m not going to,” he said, in heavily accented
English.

“I don’t want to force you to do anything,” answered Pat. “But can’t you see it’s
for your own good—and for the good of everyone else? What possible objection do you
have?”

Baldur hesitated and seemed to be struggling for words.

“It’s—it’s against my principles,” he said. “Yes, that’s it. My religion won’t allow
me to take injections.”

Pat knew vaguely that there were people with such scruples. Yet he did not for a moment
believe that Baldur was one of them. The man was lying, but why?

“Can I make a point?” said a voice behind Pat’s back.

“Of course, Mr. Harding,” he answered, welcoming anything that might break this
impasse
.

“You say you won’t permit any injections, Mr. Baldur,” continued Harding, in tones
that reminded Pat of his cross-examination of Mrs. Schuster. (How long ago
that
seemed!) “But I can tell that you weren’t born on the Moon. No one can miss going
through Quarantine,—so, how did you get here without taking the usual shots?”

The question obviously left Baldur extremely agitated.

“That’s no business of yours,” he snapped.

“Quite true,” said Harding pleasantly. “I’m only trying to be helpful.” He stepped
forward and reached out his left hand. “I don’t suppose you’d let me see your Interplanetary
Vaccination Certificate?”

That was a damn silly thing to ask, thought Pat. No human eye could read the magnetically
inscribed information on an IVC. He wondered if this would occur to Baldur, and if
so, what he would do about it.

He had no time to do anything. He was still staring, obviously taken by surprise,
at Harding’s open palm when his interrogator moved his other hand so swiftly that
Pat never saw exactly what happened. It was like Sue’s conjuring trick with Mrs. Williams—but
far more spectacular, and also much deadlier. As far as Pat could judge, it involved
the side of the hand and the base of the neck—and it was not, he was quite sure, the
kind of skill he ever wished to acquire.

“That will hold him for fifteen minutes,” said Harding in a matter-of-fact voice,
as Baldur crumpled up in his seat. “Can you give me one of those tubes? Thanks.” He
pressed the cylinder against the unconscious man’s arm; there was no sign that it
had any additional effect.

The situation, thought Pat, had got somewhat out of his control. He was grateful that
Harding had exercised his singular skills, but was not entirely happy about them.

“Now what was all that?” he asked, a little plaintively.

Harding rolled up Baldur’s left sleeve, and turned the arm over to reveal the fleshy
underside. The skin was covered with literally hundreds of almost invisible pin-pricks.

“Know what that is?” he said quietly.

Pat nodded. Some had taken longer to make the trip than others, but by now all the
vices of weary old Earth had reached the Moon.

“You can’t blame the poor devil for not giving his reasons. He’s been conditioned
against using the needle; judging from the state of those scars, he started his cure
only a few weeks ago. Now it’s psychologically impossible for him to accept an injection;
I hope I’ve not given him a relapse, but that’s the least of his worries.”

“How did he ever get through Quarantine?”

“Oh, there’s a special section for people like this; the doctor’s don’t talk about
it, but the customers get temporary deconditioning under hypnosis. There are more
of them than you might think; a trip to the Moon’s highly recommended as part of the
cure. It gets you away from your original environment.”

There were quite a few other questions that Pat would have liked to ask Harding, but
they had already wasted several minutes. Thank heaven all the remaining passengers
had gone under. That last demonstration of judo, or whatever it was, must have encouraged
any stragglers.

“You won’t need me any more,” said Sue, with a small, brave smile. “Goodbye, Pat—wake
me when it’s over.”

“I will,” he promised, lowering her gently into the space between the seat-rows. “Or
not at all,” he added, when he saw that her eyes were closed.

He remained bending over her for several seconds before he regained enough control
to face the others. There were so many things he wanted to tell her—but now the opportunity
was gone, perhaps for ever.

Swallowing to overcome the dryness in his throat, he turned to the five survivors.
There was still one more problem to deal with, and David Barrett summed it up for
him.

“Well, Captain,” he said. “Don’t leave us in suspense. Which of us do you want to
keep you company?”

One by one, Pat handed over five of the sleep-tubes.

“Thank you for your help,” he said, “I know this is a little melodramatic, but it’s
the neatest way. Only four of those will work.”

“I hope mine will,” said Barrett, wasting no time. It did. A few seconds later, Harding,
Bryan and Johanson followed the Englishman into oblivion.

“Well,” said Dr. McKenzie, “I seem to be odd man out. I’m flattered by your choice—or
did you leave it to luck?”

“Before I answer that question,” replied Pat, “I’d better let Port Roris know what’s
happened.”

He walked to the radio and gave a brief survey of the situation. There was a shocked
silence from the other end; a few minutes later, Chief Engineer Lawrence was on the
line.

“You did the best thing, of course,” he said, when Pat had repeated his story in more
detail. “Even if we hit no snags, we can’t possibly reach you in under five hours.
Will you be able to hold out until then?”

“The two of us, yes,” answered Pat. We can take turns using the spacesuit breathing
circuit. It’s the passengers I’m worried about.”

“The only thing you can do is to check their respiration, and give them a blast of
oxygen if they seem distressed. We’ll do our damnedest from this end. Anything more
you want to say?”

Pat thought for a few seconds.

“No,” he said, a little wearily. “I’ll call you again on each quarter hour.
Selene
out.”

He got to his feet—slowly, for the strain and the CO
₂
poisoning were now beginning to tell heavily upon him—and said to McKenzie: “Right,
Doc—give me a hand with that spacesuit.”

“I’m ashamed of myself. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“And I was worried because some of the other passengers might have remembered. They
must all have seen it, when they came in through the air-lock. It just goes to prove
how you can overlook the obvious.”

It took them only five minutes to detach the absorbent canisters and the 24-hour oxygen
supply from the suit; the whole breathing circuit had been designed for quick-release,
in case it was ever needed for artificial respiration. Not for the first time, Pat
blessed the skill, ingenuity and foresight that had been lavished on
Selene
. There were some things that had been overlooked, or that might have been done a
little better—but not many.

Their lungs aching, the only two men still conscious aboard the cruiser stood staring
at each other across the grey metal cylinder that held another day of life. Then,
simultaneously, each said: “You go first.”

They laughed without much humour at the hackneyed situation, then Pat answered, “I
won’t argue,” and placed the mask over his face.

Like a cool sea breeze after a dusty summer day; like a wind from the mountain pine-forests
stirring the stagnant air in some deep lowlands valley—so the flow of oxygen seemed
to Pat. He took four slow, deep breaths, and exhaled to the fullest extent, to sweep
the carbon dioxide out of his lungs. Then, like a pipe of peace, he handed the breathing
kit over to McKenzie.

Those four breaths had been enough to invigorate him, and to sweep away the cobwebs
that had been gathering in his brain. Perhaps it was partly psychological—could a
few cubic centimetres of oxygen have had so profound an effect?—but whatever the explanation,
he felt a new man. Now he could face the five—or more—hours of waiting—hours that
lay ahead.

Ten minutes later, he felt another surge of confidence. All the passengers seemed
to be breathing as normally as could be expected—very slowly, but steadily. He gave
each one a few seconds of oxygen, then called Base again.

“
Selene
here,” he said. “Captain Harris reporting. Dr. McKenzie and I both feel quite fit
now, and none of the passengers seem distressed. I’ll remain listening out, and will
call you again on the half-hour.”