A FALL OF MOONDUST
by
ARTHUR C. CLARKE


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A SIGNET BOOK
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

                                      @ 1961 By ARTHUR C. CLARKE

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 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-12345

 Published by arrangement with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

   81911- TRADEMARK HIM U.M. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES UNGINTRIED
   TRADEMARK-MAROA REGISTRADA 1WHO An CHICAGO. D.S.A.

 SIGNLIT, SIGNET CLASSICS, MENTOR, PLUMEAND MERIODIAN BOOKS
 are published by The New American Library, Inc., 1301 Avenue of the
 Americas, New York, New York 10019

 FIRST SIGNET PmNTiNo, MARCH, 1974

   6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 To Liz and Mike
           Chapter I

to be the skipper of the only boat on the moon was a distinction that
pat harris enjoyed. as the passengers filed aboard selene, jockeying for
window seats, he wondered what sort of trip it would be this time. in
the rear-view mirror he could see miss. wilkins, very smart in her blue
lunar tourist commission uniform, putting on her usual welcome act. he
always tried to think of her as

"miss. wilkins," not sue, when they were on duty together; it helped to
keep his mind on business. but what she thought of him, he had never
really discovered. there were no familiar faces; this was a new bunch,
eager for their first cruise. most of the passengers were typical
tourists-elderly people, visiting a world that had been the very symbol
of inaccessibility when they were young. there were only four or five
passengers on the low side of thirty, and they were probably technical
personnel on vacation from one of the lunar bases. it was a fairly good
working rule, pat had discovered, that all the old people came from
earth, while the youngsters were residents of the moon. but to all of
them the sea of thirst was a novelty. beyond selene's observation
windows, its gray, dusty surface marched onward unbroken until it
reached the stars. above it hung the waning crescent earth, poised
forever in the sky from which it had not moved in a billion years. the
brilliant, blue-green light of the mother world flooded this strange
land with a cold radiance-and cold it was indeed, perhaps three hundred
below zero on the exposed surface. no one could have told, merely by
looking at it, whether the sea was liquid or solid. it was completely
flat and featureless, quite free from the myriad cracks and fissures
that scarred all the rest of this barren world. not a single hillock, i
 2  arthur c. clarke

boulder, or pebble broke its monotonous uniformity. no sea on earth-no
millpond, even-was ever as calm as this. it was a sea of dust, not of
water, and therefore it was alien to all the experience of men; therefom
also, it fascinated and attracted them. fine as talcum powder, drier in
this vacuum than the parched sands of the sahara, it flowed as easily
and effortlersly as any liquid. a heavy object dropped into it would
disappear instantly. without a splash, leaving no sear to mark its
passage. nothing could move upon its treacherous surface except the
small, two-man dust-skis--and selene herself, an improbable combination
of sledge and bus, not unlike the sno-cats that had opened up the
antarctic a lifetime ago. selenes official designation was dust-cruiser,
mark 1, though to the best of pat's knowledge, a mark il did not exist
even on the drawing board. she was called

"ship,"

"boat,99 or "moon bus," according to taste; pat preferred '%oat," for it
prevented confusion when he used that word, no one would mistake him for
the skipper of a spaceship-and spaceship captains were, of course, two a
penny.

"welcome aboard selene." said miss. wilkins. when everyone had settled
down.

"captain harris and i are pleased to have you with us our trip will last
four hours, and our fint objective will be crater lake, a hundred
kilometers east of here, in the, mountains of inaccessibility..." pat
scarcely heard the familiar introduction; he was busy with his
count-down. selene was virtually a grounded spaceship; she had to be,
since she was traveling in a vacuum. and must protect her frail cargo
from the hostile world beyond her walls. though she never left the
surface of the moon, and was propelled by electric motors instead of
rockets, she carried all the basir equipment. of a full-fledged ship of
space-and all of it had to be checked before departure. oxygen--o.k
power-o.k. radio--o.k. ("hello, rainbow base selene testing. are you
receivinp rnv beacon?") inertial navigator-zeroed. air-lock safety--on-
cabin-leak detector-o.k. internal lights-o.k. gangway-disconnected. and
so on for more than fifty items, every one of which would automatically
call attention to itself in case of trouble. but pat harris, like all
spacemen hankering after old age, never relied on autowamings if he
could carry out the check himself. at last he was ready. ile almost
silent motors started to   a fall of moondust  3 spin, but the blades
were still feathered, and selene barely quivered at her moorings. ilen
he eased the port fan into fine pitch, and she began to curve slowly to
the right. when she was clear of the embarkation building, he
straightened her out and pirrhed the throttle forward. she handled very
well, when one considered the complete novelty of her design. 17here had
been no millennia of trial and error here stretching back to the first
neolithic man who ever launched a log out into a stream. selene was the
very first of her line, created in the brains of a few engineers who had
sat down at a table and asked themselves: "how do we build a vehicle
that will skim over a sea of dustr' some of them, harking back to ole
man river, had wanted to make her a stern-wheeler, but the more
efficient submerged fams had carried the day. as they drilled through
the dust, driving her before them, they produced a wake like that of a
high-speed mole, but it vanished within seconds, leaving the sea
unmarked by any sign of the boat's passage. now the squat pressure-domes
of port roris were dropping swiftly below the sky line. in less than ten
minutes, they had vanished from sight: selene was utterly alone. she was
at the center of something for which the languages of mankind have no
name. as pat switched off the motors and the boat coasted to rest, he
waited for the silence to grow around him. it was always the same; it
took a little while for the passengers to realize the strangeness of
what lay outside. they had crossed space and seen am all about them;
they had looked up--or down-at the dazzling face of earth, but this was
different. it was neither land nor sea, neither air nor space, but a
little of each. before the silence grew oppressive-if he left it too
long, someone would get scared-pat rose to his feet and faced his
passengers.

"good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he began. 64 1 hope miss. mrdkins
has been making you comfortable. we've stopped here because this is a
good place to introduce you to the sea-to give you the feel of it, as it
were." he pointed to the windows, and the ghostly gtayness that lay
beyond.

"just how far away," he asked quietly, "do you imagine our horizon is?
or, to put it in another way, how big would a  4  arthur c. clarke

man appear to you if he was standing out there where the stars seem to
meet the ground?" it was a question that no one could possibly answer,
from the evidence of sight alone. logic said, "the moon's a small
world-the horizon must be very close." but the sensft gave a wholly
different verdict. "this land," they reported, "is a~-solutely flat, and
stretches to infinity. it divides the universe in twain; for ever and
ever, it rolls onward beneath the stars.. .." the illusion remained,
even when one knew its cause. ne eye has no way of judging distances
when there is nothing for it to focus upon. vision slipped and skidded
helplessly on this featureless ocean of dust. there was not even-as
there mustalways be on earth-the softening haze of the atmosphere to
give some hint of nearness or remoteness. the stars were unwinking
needle points of light, clear down to that indeterminate horizon.

"believe it or not," continued pat, "you can see just three
kilometers--or almost two miles, for those of you who haven't been able
to go metric yet. i know it looks a couple of light-years out to the
horizon, but you could walk there in twenty minutes, if you could walk
on this stuff at all" he moved back to his seat, and started the motors
once more.

"nothing much to see for the next sixty kilometers," he called over his
shoulder, "so we'll get a move on." selene surged forward. for the first
time, there was a real sensation of speed. the boat's wake became longer
and more disturbed as the spinning fans bit fiercely into the dust. now
the dust itself was being tossed up on either side in great ghostly
plumes; from a distance, selene would have looked like a snowplow
driving its way across a winter landscape, beneath a frosty moon. but
those gray, slowly collapsing parabolas were not snow, and the lamp that
lit their trajectory was the planet earth. 7he passengers relaxed,
enjoying the smooth, almost silent ride. every one of them had traveled
hundreds of times faster than this, on the journey to the moon. but in
space one was never conscious of speed, and this swift glide across the
dust was far more exciting. when pat swung selene into a tight turn, so
that she orbited in a circle, the boat almost overtook the falling veils
of powder her fans had hurled into the sky. it seemed altogether wrong
that this impalpable dust   a fall of moondust

should rise and fail in such clean-cut curves. utterlv unaffected by air
resistance. on earth it would have drifted for houm-perhaps for days. as
soon as the boat had straightened out on a steady course and there was
nothing to look at except the empty plain, the passengers began to read
the literature thoughtfully provided for them. each had been given a
folder of photographs, maps, souvenirs ("mis is to certify that mr./
mrs./miss-has sailed the seas of the moon, aboard dust-cmiser selene"),
and informative text. they had only to read this to discover all that
thev wanted to know about the sea of thirst and perhaps a little more.
most of the moon, they read, was covered by a thin layer of dust,
usual1v no more than a few millimeters deep. some of this was debris
from the stars-the remains of meteorites that had fallen upon the moon's
unprotected face for at least five billion years. some had baked from
the lunar rocks as they expanded and contracted in the fierce
temperature extremes between day and night . whatever its source, it was
so finely divided that it would flow like a liquid, even under this
feeble gravity. over the ages, it had drifted down from the mountains
into the lowlands, to form pools and lakes. 'me first explorers had
expected this, and had usually been i3revared for it. but the sea of
thirst was a surprise; no one had anticipated finding a dustbowl more
than a hundred kilometers across. as the lunar "seas" went. it was very
small- indeed. the astronomers had never official1v recognized its
title, pointing out that it was only a small portion of the sinus
roris--the bay of dew. and how, they protested, could part of a bay be
an entire sea? but the name. invented by a copvwriter of the lunar
tourist commission, had stuck despite their objections. it was at least
as arrrorriate as the names of the other socalled seas--sea of clouds,
sea of rains, sea of tranquillity. not to mention sea of nectar. the
brochure also contained some reassuring information, designed to quell
the fears of the most nervous traveler, and to prove that the tourist
commission had thoujzht of everything. -all possible precautions have
been taken for vour safety~" it stated. "selene carries an oxygen
reserve sufficient to last for more than a week, and all essential
equipment is duplicated. an automatic radio beacon signals your position
at regular intervals, and in the extremely improbable event of   iv

6  arthur c. ckrke

a complete power failure, a dust-ski from port roris would tow you home
with little delay. above ah, there is no need to worry about rough
weather. no matter how bad a sailor you may be, you can't get seasick on
the moon. there am never any storms on the sea of thirst; it is always a
flat calm." those last comforting words had been written in all good
faith, for who could have imagined that they would soon be proved
untrue?

as silene raced silently through the earthlit night, the moon went about
its business. there was a great deal of business now, after the aeons.
of sleep. more had happened here fn the last fifty years than in the
five billion before that, and much more was to happen soon. in the first
city that man had ever built outside his native world, chief
administrator olsen was taking a stroll through the park. he was very
proud of the park, as were all the twenty-five thousand inhabitants of
port clavius. it was small, of course-though not as small as was implied
by that miserable tv commentator who'd called it " a windowbox with
delusions of grandeur." and certainly there were no parks, gardens, or
anything else on earth where you could find sunflowers ten meters high.
par overhead, wispy cirrus clouds were sailing by-or so it seemed. they
were, of course, only images projected on the inside of the dome, but
the illusion was so perfect that it sometimes made the c.a. homesick.
homesick? he corrected himself; this was home. yet in his heart of
hearts, he knew it was not true. to his children it would be, but not to
him. he had been born in stockholm, earth; they had been born in port
clavius. they were citizens of the moon; he was tied to earth with bon&
that might weaken with the years, but would never break. less than a
kilometer away, just outside the main dome, the head of the lunar
tourist commission inspected the latest returns, and permitted himself a
mild feeling of satisfaction. the improvement over the last season had
been maintained; not that there were seasons on the moon, but it was
noticeable that more tourists came when it was winter in eartys northern
hemisphere. how could he keep it up? that was always the problem, for
tourists wanted variety, and you couldn't give them the same thing over
and over again. the novel scenery, the low grav  a fall of moondust  7

ity, the view of earth, the mysteries of farside, the spectacular
heaven&, the pioneer settlements (where tourists were not always
welcomed, anyway)-after you!d listed those, what else did the moon have
to offer? what a pity there were no native selenites with quaint customs
and quainter physiques at which visitors could click their cameras.
alas, the largest life form ever discovered on the moon needed a
microscope to show it-and its ancestors had come here on lunik 11, only
a decade ahead of man himself. commissioner davis riffied mentally
through the items that had arrived by the last telefax, wondering if
there was anything there that would help him. there was, of course, the
usual request from a iv company he'd never heard of, anxious to make yet
another documentary on the moon-if all expenses were paid. the answer to
that one would be

"no"; if he accepted all these kind offers, his department would soon be
broke. than there was a chatty letter from his opposite number in the
greater new orleans tourist commission, inc., suggesting an exchange of
personnel. it was hard to see how that would help the moon, or now
ofleans, either, but it would cost nothing and might produce some good
will. and-4his was more interesting-there was a request from the
waterskiins champion of australia, asking if anyone had ever tried to
ski on the sea of thirst. yes-there was definitely an idea here; he was
surprised that someone had not tried it already. perhaps they had,
behind selene or one of the small dust-skis. it was certainly worth a
test; he was always on the lookout for new forms of hinar recreation,
and the sea of thirst was one of his pet projects. it was a project
that, within a very few hours, was going to turn into a nightmare. 
chapter 2

ahead of selene, the horizon was no longer a perfect, unbroken arc; a
jagged line of mountains had risen above the edge of the moon. as the
cruiser raced toward them, they seemed to climb slowly up the sky, as if
lifted upon some gigantic elevator.

"me mountains of inaccessibility," announced miss. wilkins. "'so called
became they're entirely surrounded by the sea. youll notice, too, that
they're much steeper than most lunar mountains." she did not labor this,
since it was an unfortunate fact that the majority of lunar peaks were a
severe disappointment. the huge craters which looked so impressive on
photographs taken from earth turned out upon close inspection to be
gently rolling hills, their relief grossly exaggerated by the shadows
they cast at dawn and sunset. there was not a single lunar crater whose
ramparts soared as abruptly as the streets of san francisco, and there
were very few that could provide a serious obstacle to a determined
cyclist. no one would have guessed this, however, from the publications
of the tourist commission, which featured only the most spectacular
cliffs and canyons, photographed from carefully chosen vantage points.

"they've never been thoroughly explored, even now," miss. wilkins
continued.

"last year we took a party of geologists there, and landed them on that
promontory, but they were only able to go a few kilometers into the
interior. so there may be anything up in those hills; we simply don7t
know." good for sue, pat told himself; she was a first-rate guide, and
knew what to leave to the imagination and what to explain in detail. she
had an easy relaxed tone, with no trace of that fatal singsong that was
the occupational disease of so many professional guides. and she had
mastered her subject 8   a fo of moondust  9

thorougbly; it was very rare for her to be asked a question that she
could not answer. altogether, she was a formidable young lady, and
though she often figured in pat's erotic reveries, he was secretly a
little afraid of her. the passengers stared with fascinated wonder at
the approaching peaks. on the still-mysterious moon, here was a deeper
mystery. rising like an island out of the strange sea that guarded them,
the mountains of inaccessibility remained a challenge for the next
generation of explorers. despite their name, it was now easy enough to
reach them-but with mdbons of square kilometers of less difficult
territory still unexamined, they would have to wait their turn. selene
was swinging into their shadows; before anyone bad realized what was
happening, the low-hanging earth had been eclipsed. its brilliant light
still played upon the peaks far overhead, but down here all was utter
darkness. -ra turn off the cabin lights," said the stewardess, "so you
can get a better view." as the dim red background illumination vanished,
each traveler felt he was alone in the lunar night. even the reflected
radiance of earth on those high peaks was disappearing as the cruiser
raced farther into shadow. within minutes, only the stars were
left-cold, steady points of light in a blackness so complete that the
mind rebelled against it. it was hard to recognize the familiar
constellations among this multitude of stars. the eye became entangled
in patterns never seen from earth, and lost itself in a glittering maze
of clusters and nebulae. in all that resplendent panorama, there was
only one unmistakable landmark-the dazzling beacon of venus, far
outshining all other heavenly bodies, heralding the approach of dawn. it
was several minutes before the travelers realized that not all the
wonder lay in the sky. behind the speeding cruiser stretched a long,
phosphorescent wake, as if a magic finger had traced a line of light
across the moon's dark and dusty face. selene was drawing a comet tail
behind her, as surely as any ship plowing its way through the tropical
oceans of earth. yet there were no microorganisms here, lighting this
dead sea with their tiny lamps. only countless grains of dust, sparking
one against the other as the static discharges caused by selene's swift
passage neutralized themselves. even when one knew the explanation, it
was still beautiful to watch-to look  10  arthur c. clarke

back into the night and to see this luminous, electric ribbon
continually renewed, continually dying away, as if the milky way itself
were reflected in the lunar surface. the shining wake was lost in the
glare as pat switched on the searchlight. ominously close at hand, a
great wall of rock wds sliding past. at this point the face of the
mountain rose almost sheer from the surrounding sea of dust; it towered
overhead to unknown heights, for only where the racing oval of light
fell upon it did it appear to bash suddenly into real existerim here
were mountains against which the himalayas, the rockies, the alps were
newborn babies. on earth, the forces of erosion began to tear at all
mountains as soon as they were formed, so that after a few million years
they were mere ghosts of their former selves. but the moon knew neither
wind nor rain; there was nothing here to wear away the rocks except the
immeasurably slow flaking of the dust as their surface layers contracted
in the chill of night. these mountains were as old as the world that had
given them birth. pat was quite proud of his showmanship, and had
planned the next act very carefully. it looked dangerous, but was
perfectly safe, for selene had been over this course a hundred times and
the electronic memory of her guidance system knew the way better than
any human pilot. suddenly, he switched off the searchlight-and now the
passengers could tell that while they had been dazzled by the glare on
one side, the mountains had been stealthily closing in upon them from
the other. in almost total darkness, selene was racing up a narrow
canyon-and not even on a straight course, for from time to time she
zigged and zagged to avoid invisible obstacles. some of them, indeed,
were not merely invisible, but nonexistent; pat had programmed this
course, at slow speed and in the safety of daylight, for maximum impact
on the nerves. the

"ah's" and

"ohs" from the darkened cabin behind him proved that he had done a good
job. far above, a narrow ribbon of stars was all that could be seen of
the outside world; it swung in crazy arcs from right to left and back
again with each abrupt change of selene's course. the night ride, as pat
privately called it, lasted for about five minutes, but seemed very much
longer. when he once again switched on the floods, so that the cruiser
was   a fall of moondust  11

moving in the center of a great pool of light, there was a sigh of
mingled relief and disappointment from the passengers. this was an
experience none of them would forget in a hurry. now that vision had
been restored, they could see that they were traveling up a steep-walled
valley or gorge, the sides of which were slowly drawing apart. presently
the canyon had widened into a roughly oval amphitheater about three
kilometers across-the heart of an extinct volcano, breached aeons ago,
in the days when even the moon was young. the crater was extremely
small, by lunar standards, but it was unique. the ubiquitous dust had
flooded into it, working its way up the valley age after age, so that
now the tourists from earth could ride in cushioned comfort into what
had once been a cauldron filled with the fires of hell. those fires had
died long before the dawn of terrestrial life, and would never wake
again. but there were other forces that had not died, and were merely
biding their time. when selene began a slow circuit of the steeply
walled amphitheater, more than one of her passengers remembered a cruise
in some mountain lake at home. here was the same sheltered stillness,
the same sense of unknown depths beneath the boat. earth had many crater
lakes, but the moon only one-though it had far more craters. taking his
time, pat made two complete circuits of the lake, while the floodlights
played upon its enclosing walls. this was the best way to see it; during
the daytime, when the sun blasted it with heat and light, it lost much
of its magic. but now it belonged to the kingdom of fantasy, as if it
had come from the haunted brain of edgar allan poe. ever and again one
seemed to glimpse strange shapes moving at the edge of vision, beyond
the narrow range of the lights. it was pure imagination, of course;
nothing moved in all this land except the shadows of the sun and earth.
"ere could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life. it was
time to turn back, to sail down the canyon into the open sea. pat'aimed
the blunt prow of selene toward the narrow rift in the mountains, and
the high walls enfolded them again. on the outward journey he left the
lights on, so that the passengers could see where they were going;
besides, that trick of the night ride would not work so well a second
time. far ahead, beyond the reach of selene's own illumination,  12  1
arthur c. clarke

a light was growing, spreading softly across the rocks and crags. even
in her last quarter, earth still had the power of a dozen full moons,
and now that they were emerging from the shadow of the mountains, she
was once more the mistress of the skies. every one of the twenty-two men
and women aboard selene looked up at that blue-green crescent, admiring
its beauty, wondering at its brilliance. how strange that the familiar
fields and lakes and forests of earth shone with such celestial glory
when one looked at them from afarl perhaps there was a lesson here;
perhaps no man could appreciate his own world until he had seen it from
space. and upon earth, there must be many eyes turned toward the waxing
moon-more than ever before, now that the moon meant so much to mankind.
it was possible, but unlikely,- that even now some of those eyes were
peering through powerful telescopes at the faint spark of selene's
floodlights as it crept through the lunar night. but it would mean
nothing to them when that spark flickered and died.

for a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess,
below the root of the mountains. throughout the entire history of man,
gas from the moon's not yet wholly dead interior had been forcing itself
along lines of weakness, accumulating in cavities hundreds of meters
below the surface. on nearby earth, the ice ages had marched past, one
by one, while the buried caverns grew and merged and at last coalesced.
now the abscess was about to burst. captain harris had left the controls
on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers when the
first tremor shook the boat. for a fraction of a second he wondered if a
fan blade had hit some submerged obstacle; then, quite literally, the
bottom fell out of his world. it fell slowly, as all things must upon
the moon. ahead of selene, in a circle many acres in extent, the smooth
plain puckered like a navel. the sea was aliveand moving, stirred by the
forces that had waked it from its age-long sleep. the center of the
disturbance deepened into a funnel, as if a giant whirlpool were forming
in the dust. every stage of that nightmare transformation was pitilessly
illuminated by the earth-light, until the crater was so deep that its
far wall was completely lost in shadow, and it seemed as if selene were
racing into a curving crescent of utter blackness-an arc of
nnnihilation.   a fall of moondust  13 the truth was almost as bad. by
the time that pat had reached the controls, the boat was sliding and
skittering far down that impossible slope. its own momentum and the
accelerating flow of the dust beneath it were carrying it headlong into
the depths. there was nothing he could do but attempt to keep on an even
keel, and to hope that their speed would carry them up the far side of
the crater before it collapsed upon them. rf the passengers screamed or
cried out, pat never heard them. he was conscious only of that dreadful,
sickening slide, and of his own attempts to keep the cruiser from
capsizing. yet even as he fought with the controls, feeding power first
to one fan, then to the other, in an effort to straighten selene's
course, a strange, nagging memory was teasing his mind. somewhere,
somehow, he had seen this happen before. that was ridiculous, of course,
but the memory would not leave him. not until he reached the bottom of
the funnel and saw the endless slope of dust rolling down from the
crater's star-fringed lip did the veil of time lift for a moment. he was
a boy again, playing in the hot sand of a forgotten summer. he had found
a tiny pit, perfectly smooth and syrnmetrical, and there was something
lurking in its depthssomething completely buried except for its waiting
jaws. ne boy had watched, wondering, already conscious of the fact that
this was the stage for some microscopic drama. he had seen an ant,
mindlessly intent upon its mission, stumble at the edge of the crater
and topple down the slope. it would have escaped easily enough-bui when
the first grain of sand had rolled to the bottom of the pit, the waiting
ogre had reared out of its lair. with its forelegs, it had hurled a
fusillade of sand at the struggling insect, until the avalanche had
overwhelmed it and brought it sliding down into the throat of the
crater. as selene was sliding now. no ant lion had dug this pit on the
surface of the moon, but pat felt as helpless now as that doomed insect
he had watched so many years ago. like it, he was struggling to reach
the safety of the rim, while the moving.ground swept him back into the
depths where death was waiting. a swift death for the ant, a protracted
one for him and his companions. the straining motors were making some
headway, but not enough. the falling dust was gaming speed-and, what was
worse, it was rising outside the walls of the cruiser. now it  14
arthur c. clarke

had reached the lower edge of the windows; now it was creeping up the
panes; and at last it had covered them completely. 'pat cut the motors
before they tore themselves to pieces, and as he did so, the rising tide
blotted out the last glimpse of the crescent earth. in darkness and in
silence, they were sinking into the moon.

  chapter 3

in the banked communications racks of thffic control, earthside north,
an electronic memory stirred uneasily. the time was one second past
twenty hundred hours gmt: a pattern of pulses that should arrive
automaticauy on every hour had failed to make its appearance. with a
swiftness beyond human thought, the handful of cells, and microscopic
relays looked for instructions. "warr five seconds," said the coded
orders. "if narbino happens, close cmurr 10011001." the minute portion
of the traffic computer as yet concerned with the problem waited
patiently for this enormous period of time-long enough to make a hundred
million twenty-figure additions, or to print most of the contents of the
library of congress. then it closed circuit 1001100-1. high above the
surface of the moon, from an antenna which, curiously enough, was aimed
directly at the face of the earth, a radio pulse launched itself into
space. in a sixth of a second it had flashed the fifty thousand
kilometers to the relay satellite known as lagrange h, directly in the
line between moon and earth. another sixth of a second and the pulse had
returned, much amplifted, flooding earthside north from pole to equator.
in terms of human speech, it carried a simple message. "hello, selene,"
the pulse said. "i am not recerving your beacon. please reply at once."
the computer waited for another five seconds. then it sent out the pulse
again, and yet again. geological ages had passed in the world of
electronics, but the machine was infinitely patient. once more, it
consulted its instructions. now they said: "close cmcurr 10101010." the
computer obeyed. in traffic control, a green light flared suddenly to
red, a buzzer started is  16  arthur c. ckwke

to saw the air with its alarm. for the first time, men as well as
machines became aware that there was trouble, somewhere on the moon. ile
news spread slowly at first, for the chief administrator took a very
poor view of unnecessary panic. so, still more strongly, did the tourist
commissioner; nothing was worse for business than alerts and
emergencies-even when, as happened in nine cases out of ten, they proved
to be due to blown fuses, tripped cutouts, or oversensitive alarms. but
on a world like the moon, it was necessary to be on one's toes. better
be scared by imaginary crises than fail to react to real ones. it was
several minutes before commissioner davis reluctantly admitted that this
looked like a real one. selene's automatic beacon had failed to respond
on one earlier occasion, but pat harris had answered as soon as he had
been called on the cruiser's assigned frequency. this time, there was
silence. selene had not even replied to a signal sent out on the
carefully guarded mooncrash band, reserved solely for emergencies. it
was this news that brought the commissioner hurrying from the tourist
tower along the buried glideway into clavius city. at the entrance to
the traffic control center, he met the chief engineer, earthside. that
was a bad sign; it meant that someone thought that rescue operations
would be necessary. the two men looked at each other gravely, each
obsessed by the same thought.

"i hope you don't need me," said chief engineer lawrence. "where's the
trouble? all i know is that i mooncrash signars gone out. what ship is
it?"

"it's not a ship. it's selene; she's not answering, from the sea of
thirst."

"my "-if anything's happened to her out there, we can only reach her
with the dust-skis. i always said we should have two cruisers operating,
before we started taking out tourists." mairs what i argued--but finance
vetoed the idea. they said we couldn't have another until selene proved
she could make a profit."

"i hope she doesn't make a headline instead," said lawrence grimly. "you
know what i think about bringing tourists to the moon." the commissioner
did, very well; it had long been a bone   a fall of moondust  17 of
contention between them. for the first time, he wondered if the chief
engineer might, have a point. it was, as always, very quiet in traffic
control. on the great wall maps, the green and amber lights flashed
continuously, their routine messages unimportant against the clamor of
that single, flaring red. at the air, power, and radiation consoles, the
duty officers sat like guardian angels, watching over the safety of one
quarter of a world.

"nothing new," reported the ground traffic officer. "we're stiff
completely in the dark. all we know is that they're.romewhere out in the
sea." he traced a circle on the large-scale map.

"unless they're fantastically off course, they must be in that general
area. on the nineteen hundred hours check, they were within a kilometer
of their planned route. at twenty hundred, their signal had vanished, so
whatever happened took place in that sixty minutes."

"how far can selene travel in an hourti someone asked.

"flat out, a hundred and twenty kilometers," replied the commissioner.
"but she normally cruises at well under a hundred. you don't hurry on a
sight-seeing tour." he stared at the map, as if trying to extract
information from it by the sheer intensity of his gaze.

"if they're out in the sea, it won!t take long to find thenl have you
sent out the dust-skist' "no, sir; i was waiting for authorizati0n.t'
davis looked at the chief engineer, who outranked anyone on this side of
the moon except chief administrator olsen himself. lawrence nodded
slowly.

"send them out," he said. "but don!t expect results in a hurry. it will
take awhile to search several thousand square kilometers--especially at
night. tell them to work over the route from the last reported position,
one ski on either side of it, so that they sweep the widest possible
band." when the order had gone out, david asked unhappily: --what do you
think could have happened?" 4'there are only a few possibilities. it
must have been sudden, because there was no message from them- that
usually means an explosion." the commissioner paled; there was always
the chance of sabotage, and no one could ever guard against that. b
cause of their ~ vulnerability, space vehicles, like aircraft =re them,
were an irresistible attraction to a certain type of crim 18  arthur c.
czarke

inal. davis thought of the venus-bound liner argo, which had been
destroyed with two hundred men, women, and children aboard, because a
maniac had a grudge against a passenger who scarcely knew him.

"and then there's collision," continued the chief engineer. "she could
have run into an obstacle."

"harris is a very careful driver," said the commissioner. "he's done
this trip scores of times." , "everyone can make mistakes; it's easy to
misjudge your distance when you're driving by earthlight." commissioner
davis barely heard him; he was thinking of all the arrangements he might
have to make. if the worst came to the worst. he'd better start by
getting the legal branch to check the indemnity forms. if any relatives
started suing the tourist commission for a few million dollars, that
would undo his entire publicity campaign for the next year-even if he
won. the ground traffic officer gave a nervous cough.

"if i might make a suggestion," he said to the chief engineer. "we could
call lagrange. the astronomers up there may be able to see something."

"at night?" asked davis skeptically. "from fifty thousand kilometers
up?,$ "easily, if her searchlights are still burninx it's worth trying
.00 "excellent idea," said the chief engineer. "do that right away .91
he should have thought of that himself, and wondered if there were any
other possibilities he had overlooked. this was not the first occasion
he had been forced to pit his wits against this strange and beautiful
world, so breath-taking in her moments of magic-so deadly in her times
of peril. she would never be wholly tamed, as earth had been, and
perhaps that was just as well. for it was the lure of the untouched
wilderness and the faint but ever-present hint of danger that now
brought the tourists as well as the explorers across the gulfs of space.
he would prefer to do without the tourists--but they helped to pay his
salary. and now he had better start packing. this whole crisis might
evaporate, and selene might turn up again quite unaware of the panic she
had caused. but he did not think this would happen, and his fear
deepened to certainty as the minutes passed. he would give her another
hour; then he would   a fall of moondust  19 take the suborbital
shuttle to port roris and to the realm of his waiting enemy, the sea of
thirst.

when the piuomy mm signal reached lagrange, thomas lawson, ph. d., was
fast asleep. he resented the interruption; though one needed only two
hours' sleep in twenty-four when living under zero gravity, it seemed a
little unfair to low even that. 'men he grasped the meaning of the
message, and was fully awake. at last it looked as if he would be doing
something useful here. tom lawson had never been very happy about this
assignment; he had wanted to do scientific research, and the atmosphere
aboard lagrange ii was much too distracting. balanced here between earth
and moon, in a cosmic tightrope act made possible by one of the obscurer
consequences of the law of gravitation, the satellite was an
astronautical maid-ofall-work. ships passing in both directions took
their fixes from it, and used it as a message center-though there was no
truth in the rumor that they stopped to pick up mail. lagrange-was also
the relay station for almost all lunar radio traffic, because the whole
earthward-facing side of the moon lay spread beneath it. lie
hundred-centimeter telescope had been designed to look at objects
billions of times farther away than the moon, but it was admirably
suited for this job. from so close at hand, even with the low power, the
view was superb. tom seemed to be hanging in space immediately above the
sea of rains, looking down upon the jagged peaks of the apennines as
they glittered in the morning light. though he had only a sketchy
knowledge of the moon's geography, he could recognize. at a glance the
great craters of archimedes and plato, aristillus and eudoxus, the dark
scar of the alpine valley, and the solitary pyramid of pico, casting its
long shadow across the plain. but the daylight region did not concern
him; what he sought lay in the darkened crescent where the sun bad not
yet risen. in some ways, that might make his task simpler. a signal
lamp--even a hand torch-would be easily visible down there in the night.
he checked the map co-ordinates, and punched the control buttons. the
burning mountains drifted out of his field of view, and only blackness
remained, as he stared into the lunar night that had just swallowed more
than twenty men and women.  20  arthur c. clarke

at first he could see nothing-certainly no winking signal light,
flashing its appeal to the stars. then, as his eyes grew more sensitive,
he could see that this land was not wholly dark. it was glimmering with
a ghostly phosphorescence as it lay bathed in the earthligbt, and the
longer he looked, the more details he could see. there were the
mountains to the east of rainbow bay, waiting for the dawn that would
strike them soon. and there-my god, what was that star shining in the
darkness? his hopes soared, then swiftly crashed. that was only the
lights of port rons, where even now men would be waiting anxiously for
the results of his survey. within a few minutes, he had convinced
himself that a visual search was useless. there was not the slightest
chance that he could see an object no bigger than a bus, down there in
that faintly luminous landscape. in the daytime, it would have been
different; he could have spotted seiene at once by the long shadow she
cast across the sea. but the human eye was not sensitive enough to make
this search by the light of the waning earth, from a height of ffty
thousand kilometers. this did not worry tom. he had scarcely expected to
see anything, on this first visual survey. it was a century and a half
since astronomers had had to rely upon their eyesight; today, they had
far more delicate weapons-a whole armory of light amplifiers and
radiation detectors. one of these, he was certain, would be able to find
selene. he would not have been so sure of this had he known that she was
no longer upon the surface of the moon.   chapter 4

when selene came to red, both crew and =ng still too stricken by
astor&hment to utter ad. %p= harris was the first to recover, perhaps
because he was the only one who had any idea of what had happened. it
was a cave-in, of course; they were not rare, though none had ever been
recorded in the sea of thirst. deep down in the moon, something had
given war, possibly the infinitesimal weight of selene had itself
triggered the collapm as pat harris rose shakily to his feet, he
wondered what line of talk he had better use to the passengers. he could
hardly pretend that everything was under control and that they'd be on
their way again in five minutes; on the other hand, panic was liable to
set in if he revealed the true seriousness of the situation. sooner or
later he would have to, but until then it was essential to maintain
confidence. he caught miss. wilkins' eye as she stood at the back of the
cabin, behind the expectantly waiting passengers. she was very pale, but
quite composed; he knew that he could rely on her, and bashed her a
reassuring smile.

"we seem to be in one piece," he began in an easy, conversational style.

"we've had a slight accident, as you'll gather, but things could be
worse." (how? a part of his mind asked him. well, the bull could have
been fractured... so you want to prolong the agony? he shut off the
interior monologue by an effort of will.) "we've been caught in a
landslip-a moonquake, if you like. there's certainly no need to be
alarmed; even if we can't get out under our own power, port roris will
soon have someone here. meanwhile, i know that miss. wilkins was just
going to serve refreshments, so i suggest you all relax, while
i--ah---do whatever proves necessary .99 that seemed to have gone over
quite well. with a silent 21  22  arthur c. ckrke

sigh of relief, he turned back to the controls. as he did so, he noticed
one of the passengers light a cigarette. it was an atkomatic reaction,
and one that he felt very much like sharing. he said nothing; that would
have destroyed the atmosphere his little speech had created. but he
caught the man!s, eye just long enough for the message to go home; the
cigarette had been stubbed out before he resumed his seat as he switched
on the radio, pat heard the babble of conversation start up behind him.
when a group of people were talking together, you could gather their
mood even if you could not hear the individual words. he could detect
annoyance, excitement, even amusement-but, as yet, very little fear.
probably those who were speaking did not realize the full danger of the
situation; the ones who did were silent. and so was the ether. he
searched the wave bands from end to end, and found only a faint crackle
from the electrified dust that had buried them. it was just as he had
expected. this deadly stuff, with its high metallic content, was an
almost - verfect shield. it would pass neither radio waves nor sound;-
when he tried to transmit, he would be like a man shouting from the
bottom of a well that was packed wilb feathers. he switched the beacon
to the high-powered emergency setting, so that it automatically
broadcast a distress signal on the mooncrash band. if anything got
through, this would; there was no point in trying to call port roris
himself, and his fruitless efforts would merely upset the passengers. he
left the receiver operating on selene's assigned frequency, in case of
any reply, but he knew that it was useless. no one could hear them; no
one could speak to them. as far as they were concerned, the rest of the
human race might not exist he did not brood over this setback for very
long. he had expected it, and there was too much else to do. with the
utmost care, he checked all the instruments and gauges. everything
appeared to be perfectly normal, except that the temperature was just a
shade high. that also was to be expected, now that the dust blanket was
shielding them from the cold of space. ifis greatest worry was the
thickness of that blanket, and the pressure it was exerting on the boat.
there must be thousands of tons of the stuff above selene-and her hull
had been designed to withstand pressure from within, not from   a fall
of moondust  23

without. if she went too deep, she might be cracked like an eggshell.
how deep the cruiser was, he had no idea. when he bad caught his last
glimpse of the stars, she was about ten meters below the surface, and
she might have been carried down much farther by the suction of the
dust. it would be advisable-even though it would increase their oxygen
consurnp.- tion-to put up the internal pressure7 and thus take some of
the strain off the bull. very slowly, so that there would be no telltale
popping of ears to alarm anyone, he boosted the cabin pressure by twenty
per cent. when he had finished, he felt a little happier. he was not the
only one, for as soon as the pressure gauge had stabilized at its new
level, a quiet voice said over his shoulder: "i think that was a very
good idea." he twisted around to see what busybody was spying on him,
but-his angry protest died unborn. on his first quick inspection, pat
had recognized none of the passengers; now, however, he could tell that
there was something vaguely familiar about the stocky, gray-haired man
who had come forward to the driver's position.

"i don't want to intrude, captain-you're the skipper here. but i thought
rd better introduce myself in case i can help. i'm commodore hansteen."
pat stared, slack-jawed, at the man who had led the first expedition to
pluto, who had probably landed on more virgin planets and moons than any
explorer in history. all he could say to express his astonishment was

"you weren't down on the passenger listl" the commodore smiled.

"my alias is hanson. since i retired, ive been trying to do a little
sight-seeing without quite so much responsibility. and now that i've
shaved off my beard, no one ever recognizes me. 'tru very glad to have
you here," said pat, with deep feeling. already some of the weight
seemed to have lifted from his shoulders; the commodore would be a tower
of strength in the difficult hours-or days-that lay ahead. "if you don't
mind," continued hansteen, with that same careful politeness, "i'd
appreciate an evaluation. to put it bluntly, how long can we last?"
'%)xysen's the limiting factor, as usual. we've enough for

 24  arthur c. clarke

about seven days, assuming that no leaks develop. so far, there are no
signs of any."

"well, that gives us time to think. what about food and waterr' "well be
hungry, but we won't starve. there's an emergency reserve of compressed
food, and of course the air purifiers will produce all the water we
need. so there's no problem there." 4'power?99 "plenty, now that we're
not using our motors."

"i notice that you haven't tried to call base."

"it's useless; the dust blankets us completely. rve put the beacon on
emergency-thats our only hope of getting a signal through, and its a
slim one."

"so theyll have to find us in some other way. how long do you think it
will take themt' "that's extremely difficult to say. the search will
begin as soon as our twenty hundred hours transmission is missed, and
they'll know our general area. but we may have gone down without leaving
any trace-you've seen how this dust obliterates everything. and even
when they do find us--2' "how will they get us out?"

"exactly." skipper of twenty-seat dust-cruiser and commodore of space
stared at each other in silence, as their minds circled the same
problem. then, cutting across the low murmur of conversation, they heard
a very english voice call out: "i say, miss-this is the first decent cup
of tea i've drunk on the moon. i thought no one could make it here. my
congratulations." the commodore chuckled quietly.

"he ought to thank you, not the stewardess," he said, pointing to the
pressure gauge. pat smiled rather wanly in return. that was true enough;
now that he had put up the cabin pressure, water must be boiling at
nearly its normal, sea-level temperature back on earth. at last they
could have some hot drinks-not the usual tepid ones. but it did seem a
somewhat extravagant way to make tea, not unlike the reputed chinese
method of roasting pig by burning down the entire house.

"our big problem," said the commodore (and pat did not in the least
resent that "our"), "is to maintain morale. i think it's important,
therefore, for you to give a pep talk about the   a fall of moondust 25

search procedure that must be starting now. 'but don't be too
optimistic; you mustn't give the impression that someone will be
knocking on the door inside half an hour. that might make it difficult
if-well, if we have to wait several days."

"it won!t take me long to describe the mooncrash organization," said
pat.

"and, frankly, it wasn't planned to deal with a situation like this.
when a ship's down on the moon, it can be spotted very quickly from one
of the satellites--either lagrange h, above earthside, or lagrange 1,
over farside. but i doubt if they can help us now. as i said, we've
probably gone down without leaving a trace."

"thaes hard to believe. when a ship sinks on earth, it always leaves
something behind-bubbles, oil slicks, floating wreckage."

"none of those apply to us. and i can't think of any way we could send
something up to, the surface--however far away that is."

"so we just have to sit and wait."

"yes," agreed pat. he glanced at the oxygen-reserve indicator. "and
there's one thing we can be sure of: we can only wait a week."

fifty thousand kilometers above the moon, tom lawson laid down the last
of his photographs. he had gone over every square millimeter of the
prints with a magnifying glass. their quality was excellent; the
electronic image intensifier, millions of times more sensitive than the
human eye, had revealed details as clearly as if it were already
daylight down there on the faintly glimmering plain. he had even spotted
one of the tiny dust-skis--or, more accurately, the long shadow it cast
in the earthlight. yet there was no trace of selene; the sea was as
smooth and unruffled as it had been before the coming of man. and as it
would be, in all probability, ages after he had gone. tom hated to admit
defeat, even in matters far less important than this. he believed that
all problems could be solved if they were tackled in the right way, with
the right equipment. this was a challenge to his scientific ingenuity;
the-fact that there were many lives involved was immaterial. dr. tom
lawson had no great use for human beings, but he did respect the
universe. this was a private fight between him and it. he considered the
situation with a coldly critical intelli- 26  arthur c. clarke gence.
now how would the great holmes have tackled the problem? (it was
characteristic of tom that one of the few men he really admired had
never existed.) he had eliminated the open sea, so that left only one
possibility. the dustcruiser must have come to grief along the coast or
near the mountains, probably in the region known as--he checked the
charts--crater lake. that made good sense; an accident was much more
likely here than out on the smooth, unobstructed plain. he looked at the
photographs again, this time concentrating on the mountain& at once, he
ran into a new difficulty. there were scores of isolated crags and
boulders along the edge of the sea, any one of which might be the
missing cruiser. worse still, there were many areas that he could not
survey at all, because his view was blocked by the mountains themselves.
from his vantage point, the sea of thirst was far around the curve of
the moon, and his view of it was badly foreshortened. crater lake
itself, for instance, was completely invisible to him, hidden by its
mountain wall& that am could only be investigated by the dust-skis,
working at ground level; even tom. lawson's godlike eminence was useless
here. he had better call earthside and give them his interim report.
lawson, lagrange if," he said, when communications had put him through.
"rve searched the sea of thirstthere's nothing in the open plain. your
boat must have gone aground near the edge."

"thank you," said an unhappy voice. "you're quite sure of thattl
',absolutely. i can see your dust-skis, and they're only a quarter the
size of selene."

"anything visible along the edge of the sea?" rbere's too much
small-scale detail to make a search posiible. i can see fifty-oh, a
hundred--objects that might be the. right size. as soon as the sun rises
it be able to examine them more closely. but it's night down there now,
remem "we appreciate your help. let us know if you find anything else."
down in clavius city, the tourist commissioner heard lawson!s report
with resignation. that settled it; the next of   a fall of moondust  27
kin had better be notified. it was unwise, if not impossible, to
maintain secrew any longer. he turned to the ground traffic officer and
asked: "is that passenger list in yet?"

"just coming over the telefax from port roris. here you are." as he
handed over the flimsy sheet, he said inquisitively: "anyone important
aboard?"

"all tourists are important," said the commissioner coldly, without
looking up. then, in almost the same breath, he added: "oh, my godl"

"what's the matter?"

"commodore hansteen's aboard."

"what? i didn!t know he was on the moon."

"we've kept it quiet. we thought it was a good idea to have him on the
tourist commission, now that he's retired. he wanted to have a look
around, incognito, before he made up his mind." there was a shocked
silence as the two men considered the irony of the situation. here was
one of the greatest heroes of space-lost as an ordinary tourist in some
stupid accident in earth's backyard, the moon.

"that may be very bad luck for the commodore," said the traffic
controller at last. "but it's good luck for the passengers-if they're
still alive."

"they'll need all the luck they can get, now the observatory can't help
us," said the commissioner. he was right on the first point, but wrong
on the second. dr. tom lawson still had a few tricks up his sleeve. and
so did the reverend vincent ferraro, s . j., a scientist of a very
different kind. it was a pity that he and tom lawson were never to meet;
the resulting fireworks would have been quite interesting~ father
ferraro believed in god and man; dr. lawson believed in neither. the
priest had started his scientific career as a geophysicist, then
switched worlds and became a selenophysicistthough that was a name he
used only in his more pedantic moments. no man alive had a greater
knowledge of the moon!s interior, gleaned from batteries of instruments
strategically placed over the entire surface of the satellite. those
instruments had just produced some rather interesting results. at 19
hours 35 minutes 47 seconds gmt, there had been a major quake in the
general area of rainbow bay. that was a little surprising, for the area
was an unusually  29  arthur c. clarke - stable one, even for the
tranquil moon. father ferraro set his computers to work pinpointing the
focus of the disturbance, and also instructed them to search for any
otheranomalous instrument readings. he left them at this task while he
went to lunch, and it was here that his colleagues told him about the
missing selene. no electronic computer can match the human brain at as~
sociating -apparently irrelevant facts. father ferraro only had time for
one spoonful of soup before he had put two and two together and had
arrived at a perfectly reasonable but disastrously misleading answer.

 chapter 5

"and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the position" concluded commodore
hansteen. "were in no immedia danger, and i haven't the slightest doubt
that well be located quite soon. until then, we have to make the best of
it." he paused, and swiftly scanned the upturned, anxioui faces. already
he had noted the possible trouble spots-that little man with the nervous
tic, the acidulous, prune-faced lady who kept twisting her handkerchief
in knots. maybe they'd neutralize each other, if he could get them to
sit together.

"captain harris and i-hes the boss; rm only acting as his adviser-have
worked out a plan of action. food will be simple and rationed, but will
be adequate, especially since you won't be engaged in any physical
activity. we would like to ask some of the ladies to help miss. wilkins;
shell have a lot of extra work, and could do with some assistance. our
biggest problem, frankly, is going to be boredom. by the way, did anyone
bring any books?" there was much scrabbling in handbags and baskets. the
total haul consisted of assorted lunar guides, including six copies of
the official handbook; a current best seller, the orange and the apple,
whose unlikely theme was a romance between nell gwyn and sir isaac
newton; a harvard press edition of shane, with scholarly annotations by
a professor of english; an introduction to the logical positivism of
augusta comte; and a week-old copy of the new york times, earth edition.
it was not much of a library, but with careful ratiouing it would help
to pass the hours that lay ahead.

"i think well form an entertainment committee to decide how well use
this material, though i don't know how it will deal with monsieur comte.
meanwhile, now that you know what our situation is, are there any
questions, any points 29  30  arthur c. clarke

you'd like captain harris or myself to explain in more detan?"

"mere's one thing rd like to ask, sir, " said the english voice that had
made the complimentary remarks about the tea. "is there the slightest
chance that w&'u float up? i mean, if this stuff is like water, won!t we
bob up sooner or later, like a corkt' that floored the commodore
completely. he looked at pat and said wryly: "that's one for you, mr.
harris. any comment?" pat shook his head. -rm afraid it won't work.
true, the air inside the hull must make us very buoyant, but the
resistance of this dust is enormous. we may float up eventually-in a few
thousand years." the englishman, it seemed, was not easily discouraged.

"i noticed that there was a space suit in the air lock. could :myone get
out and swim up? then the search party will yor where we are." pat
stirred uneasily. he was the only one qualified to wear that suit, which
was purely for emergency use. -rm almost sure it's impossible," he
answered. "i doubt if a man could move against the resistance-and of
course bed be absolutely blind. how would he know which way was up? and
how would you closethe outer door after him? once the dust had flooded
in, there would be no way of clearing it. you certainly couldn't pump it
out again." he could have said more, but decided to leave it at that.
they might yet be reduced to such desperate expedients, if there was no
sign of rescue by the end of the week. but that was a nightmare that
must be kept firmly at the back of his mind, for to dwell too long upon
it could only sap his courage. "if there are no more questions," said
hansteen, "i suggest we introduce ourselves. whether we like it or not,
we have to get used to each other's company, so let's find out who we
are. 12 go round the room and perhaps each of you in turn will give your
name, occupation, and home town. you first,

"robert bryan, civil engineer, retired, kingston, jamaica." irving
schuster, attorney at law, chicago-and my wife, myra .99   a fall of
moondust  31 "nihal jayawardene, professor of zoology, university of
ceylon, peradeniya." as the roll call continued, pat once again found
himself grateful for the one piece of luck in this desperate situation.
by character, training, and experience, commodore hansteen was a bom
leader of men: already he was beginning to weld this random collection
of individuals into a unit, to build up that indefinable esprit de corps
that transforms a mob into a team. these things he had learned while his
little fleet-the first ever to venture beyond the orbit of neptune,
almost three billion miles from the sun-had hung poised week upon week
in the emptiness between the planets. pat, who was thirty years younger
and had never been away from the earth-moon system, felt no resentment
at the change of command that had tacitly taken place. it was nice of
the commodore to say that he was still the boss, but he knew better.

"duncan mckenzie, physicist, mount stromlo observatory, canberra."

"pierre blanchard, cost accountant, clavius city, earthside."

"phyllis morley, journalist, london."

"karl johanson, nucleonics engineer, tsiolkovski base, farside." that
was the lot; quite a collection of talent, though not an unusual one,
for the people who came to the moon always had something out of the
ordinary-even if it was only money. but all the skill and experience now
locked up in sekne could not, so it seemed to pat, do anything to help
them in their present situation. that was not quite true, as -commodore
hansteen was now about to prove. he knew, as well as any man alive, that
they would be fighting boredom as well as fear. they had been thrown
upon their own resources; in an age of universal entertainment and
communications, they had suddenly been cut off from the rest of the
human race. radio, tv, telefax newssheets, movies, telephone-all these
things now meant no more to them than to the people of the stone age.
they were like some ancient tribe gathered round the campfire, in a
wildefness that held no other men. even on the pluto run, thought
commodore hansteen, they had never been as lonely as this. they had had
a fine library and had been well stocked with every possible form of
canned entertainment,  32  arthur c. clarke

and they could talk by tight beam to the inner planets whenever they
wished. but on selene, there was not even a pack of cards. that was an
idea. "miss. morleyl as a journalist i imagine you have a notebook?"
4'why, yes' commodore."

"fifty-two blank sheets in it still?"

"i think so."

"then i must ask you to sacrifice them. please cut them out and mark a
pack of cards on them. no need to be artistic---as long as they're
legible, and the lettering doesn7t show through the back."

"how are you going to shuffle paper cards?" asked somebody. 46 a good
problem for our entertainment committee to solve. anyone who thinks they
have talent in this directiont' "i used to be on the stage," said myra
schuster, rather hesitantly. her husband did not look at all pleased by
this revelation, but it delighted the commodore.

"excellentl though we're a little cramped for space, i was hoping we
might be able to put on a pjav!, now mrs. schuster looked as unhappy as
her husband.

"it was rather a long time ago," she said, "and 1-1 never did much
talking." there were several chuckles, and even the commodore had
difficulty in keeping a straight face. looking at mrs. schuster, on the
wrong side of both fifty years and a hundred kilos, it was a little hard
to imagine her as, he suspected, a chorus girl.

"never mind, " he said, "it's the spirit that counts. who will help mrs.
schuster?" "rve done some amateur theatricals," said professor
jayawardene. "mostly brecht and ibsen, though." that final "though"
indicated recognition of the fact that something a little lighter would
be appreciated here-say, one of the decadent but amusing comedies of the
1980's, which had invaded the airways in such numbers with the collapse
of tv censorship. there were no more volunteers for this job, so the
commodore moved mrs. schuster and professor jayawardene into adjacent
seats and told them to start program-planning. it seemed unlikely that
such an ill-assorted pair would produce anything useful, but one never
knew. the main thing   a fall of moondust  33 was to keep everyone
busy, either on tasks of their own or co-operating with others.

"we'll leave it at that for the moment," concluded hansteen. "if you
have any bright ideas, please give them to the committee. meanwhile, i
suggest you stretch your legs and get to know each other. everyone's
announced his job and home town; many of you must have common interests
or know the same friends. you'll have plenty of things to talk about."
and plenty of time, too, he added silently. he was conferring with pat
in the pilot's cubicle when they were joined by dr. mckenzie, the
australian physicist. he looked very worried-even more so than the
situation merited.

"there's something i want to tell you, commodore," he said urgently. "if
i'm right, that seven-day oxygen reserve doesn't mean a thing. there's a
much more serious danger." 'tifhafs that?"

"heat." the australian indicated the outside world with a wave of his
hand.

"we're blanketed by this stuff, and it's about the best insulator you
can have. on the surface, the heat our machines and bodies generated
could escape into space, but down here it's trapped. that means we'll
get hotter and hotter-until we cook."

"my god," said the commodore. "i never thought of that. how long do you
think it will take?"

"give me half an hour, and i can make a fair estimate. my guess is-not
much more than a day." the commodore felt a wave of utter helplessness
sweep over him. there was a horrible sickness at the pit of his stomach,
like the second time he had been in free fall. (not the first-he had
been ready for it then. but on the second trip, he had been
overconfident.) if this estimate was right, all their hopes were
blasted. they were slim enough in all conscience, but given a week there
was a slight chance that something might be done. with only a day, it
was out of the question. even if they were found in that time, they
could never be rescued.

"you might check the cabin temperature," continued mckenzie. "that will
give us some indication." hansteen walked to the control panel and
glanced at the maze of dials and indicators.

"i'm afraid yo&re right," he said. "it's gone up two degrees already." 
34  arthur c. clarke

"over a degree an hour. that's about what i figured." the commodore
turned to harris, who had been listening to the discussion with growing
alarm.

"is there anything we can do to increase the cooling? how much reserve
power has our air-conditioning gear gott' before pat could answer, the
physicist intervened. that won't help us," he said a little impatiently.
"all that our refrigeration does is to pump heat out of the cabin and
radiate it away. but that's exactly what it can't do now, because of the
dust around us. if we try to run the cooling plant faster, it will
actually make matters worse." there was a gloomy silence that lasted
until the commodore said: "please check those calculations, and let me
have your best estimate as soon as you can. and for heaven's sake don't
let this go beyond the three of us." he felt suddenly very old. he had
been almost enjoying his unexpected last command; and now it seemed that
he would have it only for a day.

at that very moment, though neither party knew the fact, one of the
searching dust-skis was passing overhead. built for speed, efficiency,
and cheapness, not for. the comfort of tourists, it bore little
resemblance to the sunken selene. it was, in fact,,no more than an open
sledge with seats for pilot and one passenger-each wearing a space
suit-and with a canopy overhead to give protection from the sun. a
simple control panel, motor, and twin fans at the rear, storage racks
for tools and equipment-that completed the inventory. a ski going about
its normal work usually towed at least one carrier sledge behind it,
sometimes two or three, but this one was traveliny light. it had
zigzagged back and forth across several hundred square kilometers of the
sea, and had found absolutely nothing. over the suit intercom, the
driver was talking to his companion.

"what do you think happened to them, george? i don't believe they're
here."

"where else can they be? kidnaped by outsiders?"

"i'm almost ready to buy that" was the half-serious answer. sooner or
later, all astronauts believed, the human race would meet intelligences
from elsewhere. that meeting might still be far in the future but
meanwhile, the hypothetical

"outsiders" were part of the mythology of space, and got the blame for 
a fall of moondust  35

everything that could not be explained in any other way. it was easy to
believe in them when you were with a mere handful of companions on some
strange, hostile world where the very rocks and air (if there was air)
were completely alien. 11en, nothing could be taken for granted, and the
experience of a thousand earth-bound generations might be useless. as
ancient man had peopled the unknown around him with gods and spirits, so
honw asironauticus looked over his shoulder when he landed upon each new
world, wondering who or what was there already. for a few brief
centuries, man had imagined himself the lord of the universe, and those
primeval hopes and fears had been buried in his subconscious. but now
they were stronger than ever, and with good reason, as he looked into
the shining.face of the heavens and thought of the power and, knowledge
that must be lurking there.

"better report to base," said george. "we've covered our area, and
there's no point in going over it again. not until sunriw anyway. well
have a much better chance of finding something then. ilis damned
earthlight gives me the creeps." he switched on the radio, and gave the
ski's call sign.

"duster two callinp, traffic control. over."

"port roris traffic control here. found anything?-

"not a trace. what's new from your endr' "we don't think she's out in
the sea. the chief engineer wants to speak to you."

"right; put him on."

"hello, duster two. lawrence here. plato observatory's just reported a
quake near the mountains of inaccessibility. it took place at nineteen
thirty-five, which is near enough the time when selene should have been
in crater lake. they suggest she's been caught in an avalanche somewhere
in that area. so head for the mountains and see if you can spot any
recent slides or rockfalls."

"what's the chance, sir,- asked the dust-ski pilot anxiously, "that
there may be more quakes?"

"very small, according to the observatory. they say it win be thousands
of years before anything like this happens again, now that the stresses
have been relieved."

"i hope they're right. rll radio when i get to crater lake; that should
be in about twenty minutes." but it was only fifteen minutes before
duster two destroyed the last hopes of the waiting listeners.  36
arthur c. clarke

"duster two calling. this is it, im afraid. ive not reached crater lake
yet; i'm still heading up the gorge. but the observatory was right about
the quake. there have been several slides, and we had difficulty in
getting past some of them. there must be ten thousand tons of rock in
the one rin looking at now. if selene's under that lot, well never find
her. and it wotvt be worth the trouble of looking. " the silence in
traffic control lasted so long that the ski called back: "hello, traffic
control-.did you receive me?"

"receiving you," said the chief engineer in a tired voice. "see if you
can find some trace of them. it send duster one in to help. are you sure
theres no chance of digging them outrt "it might take weeks, even if we
could locate them. i saw one slide three hundred meters long. if you
tried to dig, the rock would probably start moving again."

"be very careful. report every fifteen minutes, whether you find
anything or not." lawrence turned away from the microphone, physically
and mentally exhausted. there was nothing more that he could do---or, he
suspected, that anyone could do. trying to compose his thoughts, he
walked over to the southward-facing observation window, and stared into
the face of the crescent earth. it was hard to believe that she was
fixed there in the southern sky, that though she hung so close to the
horizon, she would neither rise nor set in a million years. however long
one lived here, one never really accepted this fact, which violated all
the racial wisdom of mankind. on the other side of that gulf (already so
small to a generation that had never known the time when it could not be
crossed), ripples of shock and grief would soon be spreading. thousands
of men and women were involved, directly or indirectly, because the moon
had stirred briefly in her sleep. lost in his thoughts, it was some time
before lawrence realized that the port signals officer was trying to
attract his attention. a'excuse me, sir-you've not called duster one.
shall i do it nowr, "what? oh yes-go ahead. send him to help two in
crater lake. tell him we've called off the search in the sea of thirst."
  chapter 6

the news that the search had been called off reached lagrange 11 when
tom lawson, red-eyed from lack of sleep, had almost completed the
modifications to the hundred-centimeter telescope. he had been racing
against time, and now it seemed that all his efforts had been wasted.
selene was not in the sea of thirst at all, but in a place where he
could never have found her-hidden from him by the ramparts of crater
lake, and, for good measure, buried by a few thousand tons of rock.
torn's first reaction was not one of sympathy for the vicfinis, but of
anger at his wasted time and efforl those youno astronomer rnqds missino
tourists headlines would never bash across the news-screens of the
inhabited worlds. as his private drearn of glory collapsed, he cursed
for a good thirty seconds, with a fluency that would have astonished big
colleagues. then, still furious, he started to dismantle the equipment
he had begged, borrowed, and stolen from the other projects on the
satellite. it would have worked; he was sure of that the theory had been
quite sound-indeed, it was based on almost a hundred years of practice
infrared reconnaissance dated back to at least as early as world war h,
when it was used to locate camouflaged factories by their telltale beat
though selene had left no visible track across the sea, she must, =rely,
have left an infrared one. her fans had stirred up the relatively warm
dust a foot or so down, scattering it across the far colder surface
layers. an eye that could see by the rays of heat could track her path
for hours after she bad passed. there would have been just time, tom
calculated, to make such an infrared surv6y before the sun rose and
obliterated all traces of the faint heat trail through the cold lunar
nighl 37  38  arthur c. clarke

but, obviously, there was no point in trying now.

it was well that no one aboard selene could have guessed that the search
in the sea of thirst had been abandoned, and that the dust-skis were
concentrating their efforts inside crater lake. and it was well, also,
that none of the passengers knew of dr. mckenzie's predictions. the
physicist had drawn, on a piece of homemade graph paper, the expected
rise of temperature. every hour he noted the reading of the cabin
thermometer and pinpointed it on the curve. the agreement with theory
was depressingly good; in twenty hours, one hundred ten degrees
fahrenheit would be passed, and the fffst deaths from heatstroke would
be occuffing. whatever way he looked at it, they had barely a day to
live. in these circumstances, commodore hansteen's efforts to maintain
morale seemed no more than an ironic jest. whether he failed or
succeeded, it would be all the same by the day after tomorrow. yet was
that true? though their only choice might lie between dying like men and
dying like animals, surely the first was better. it made no difference
even if selene remained undiscovered until the end of time, so that no
one ever knew how her occupants passed their 1mal hours. this was beyond
logic or reason; but so, for that matter, was almost everything that was
really important in the shaping of men!s lives and deaths. commodore
hansteen was well aware of that, as he planned the program for the
dvnndhng hours that lay aheadsome men are bom to be leaders, and he was
one of them. the emptiness of his retirement had been suddenly filled;
for the first time since he had left the bridge of his fiagship
centaurus, he felt whole again. as long as his little crew was busy, he
need not worry -about morale. it did not matter what they were doing,
provided they thought it interesting or important. that poker same, for
instance, took care of the space administration accountant, the retired
civil engineer, and the two executives on vacation from new york. one
could tell at a glance that they were all poker fanatics; the problem
would be to stop them playing, not to keep them occupied. most of the
other passengers had split up into little discussion groups, talking
quite cheerfully among themselves. the entertainment committee was still
in session, with professor   a fall of moondust  39

jayawardene -making occasional notes while mrs. schuster remblisced
about her days in burlesque, despite theattempts of her husband to shut
her up. ile only person who seemed a little apart from it all was miss.
morley, who was writing slowly and carefully, using a very minute hand,
in what was' left of her notebook. presumably, like a good journalist,
she was keeping a diary of their adventure. commodore hansteen was
afraid that it would be briefer than she suspected, and that not even
those few pages would be filled. and if they were, he doubted that
anyone would ever read them. he glanced at his watch, and-was surprised
to see how late it was. by now, he should have been on the other side of
the moon, back in clavius city. he had a lunch engagement at the lunar
hilton, and after that a trip to-but there was no point in thinking
about a future that could never eidst. the brief present was all that
would ever concern him now. it would be as well to get some sleep,
before the temperature became unbearable. selene had never been designed
as a dormitory-or a tomb, for that matter-but it would have to be turned
into one now. this involved some research and planning, and a certain
amount of damage to tourist commission property. it took him twenty
minutes to ascertain all the facts; then, after a brief conference with
captain harris, he called for attention.

"ladies and gentlemen," he said, "weve all had a busy day, and i think
most of us will be glad to get some sleep. this presents a few problems,
but i've been doing some experimenting and have discovered that with a
little encouragement the center armrests between the seats come out.
they're not supposed to, but i doubt if the commission will sue us. that
means that ten of us can stretch out across the seats; the rest will
have to use the floor.

"another point. as you will have noticed, it's become rather warm, and
will continue to do so for some time. therefore i advise you to take off
all unnecessary clothing; comfort is much more important than modesty."
(and survival,'he added silently, is much more important than
comfort-but it would be some hours yet before it came to that.) "well
turn off the main cabin lights, but since we don't want to be in
complete darkness, we'll leave on the emergency lighting at low power.
one of us will remain on watch at all times in the skipper's seat. mr.
harris is working out a roster of two-hour shifts. any questions or
comments?"  iffil40  arthur c. clark~

there were none, and the commodore breathed a sigh of relief. he was
afraid that someone would be inquisitive about the rising temperature,
and was not quite sure how he would have answered. his many
accomplishments did not include the gift of lying, and he was anxious
that the passengers should have as untroubled a sleep as was possible in
the circurnstances. barring a miracle, it would be their last. miss.
wilkins, who was beginning to lose a little of her professional
smartness, took round final drinks for those who needed them. most of
the passengers had already began to remove their outer clothing; the
more modest ones waited until the main lights went off. in the dim red
glow, the interior of selene now had a fantastic appearance, one that
would have been utterly inconceivable when she left port roris a few
hours before. twenty-two men and women, most of them stripped down to
their underclothing, lay sprawled across the seats or along the floor. a
few lucky ones were already snoring, but for most, sleep would not come
as easily as that. captain harris had chosen a position at the very rear
of the cruiser; in fact, he was not in the cabin at all, but in the tiny
air-lock galley. it was a good vantage point. now that the communicating
door had been slid back, he could look the whole length of the cabin and
keep an eye on everyone indide it. he folded his uniform into a pillow,
and lay down on the unyielding floor. it was six hours before his watch
was due, and he hoped he could get some sleep before then. sleepi the
last hours of his life were ticking away, yet he had nothing better to
do. how well do condemned men sleep, he wondered, in the night that will
end with the gallows? he was so desperately tired that even this thought
brought no emotion. the last thing he saw, before consciousness slipped
away, was dr. mckenzie taking yet another temperature reading and
carefully plotting it on his chart, like an astrologer casting a
horoscope.

fifteen meters above-a distance that could be covered in a single stride
under this low gravity-morning had already come. there is no twilight on
the'moon, but for many hours the sky had held the promise of dawn.
stretching far ahead of the sun was the glowing pyramid of the zodiacal
light, so seldom seen on earth. with infinite slowness it edged its way
  a fall of moondust -  41

above the horizon, growing brighter and brighter as the moment of
sunrise approached. now it had merged into the opalescent glory of the
corona; and now, a million times more brilliant than either, a thin
thread of fire began to spread along the horizon as the sun made its
reappearance after fifteen days of darkness. it would take more than an
hour for it to lift itself clear of the sky line, so slowly did the moon
turn on its axis, but the night had already ended. a tide of ink was
swiftly ebbing from the sea of thirst, as the fierce light of dawn swept
back the darkness. now the whole drab expanse of the sea was raked with
almost hori-. zontal rays. had there been anything showing above its
surface, this grazing light would have thrown its shadow for hundreds of
meters, revealing it at once to any who were searching. but there were
no searchers there. duster one and duster two were busy on their
fruitless quest in crater lake, fifteen kilometers away. they were still
in darkness; it would be another two days before the sun rose above the
surrounding peaks, though their summits were already blazing with the
dawn. as the hours passed, the sharp-edged line of light would creep
down the flanks of the mountains-sometimes moving no faster than a man
could walk-until the sun climbed high enough for its rays to strike into
the crater. but man-made light was already shining there, flashing among
the rocks as the searchers photographed the slides that had come
sweeping silently down the mountains when the moon trembled in its
sleep. within an hour, those photographs would have reached earth; in
another two, all the inhabited worlds would have seen them. it would be
very bad for the tourist business.

when captain harris awoke, it was already much hotter. yet it was not
the now oppressive heat that had interrupted his sleep, a good hour
before he was due to go on watch. tbough he had never spent a night
aboard her, pat knew all the sounds that selene could make. when the
motors were not running, she was almost silent; one had to listen
carefully to notice the susurration of the air pumps and the low throb
of the cooling plant. those sounds were still there, as they had been
before he went to sleep. they were unchanged; but they had been joined
by another. it was a barely audible whisper, so faint that for a moment
 42  arthur c, clarke

he could not be sure he was not imagining it. that it should have called
to his subconscious mind across the barriers of sleep seemed quite
incredible. even now that he was awake, he could not identify it, or
decide from which direction it came. then, abruptly, he knew why it had
awakened him. in a second, the sogginess of sleep had vanished. he got
quickly to his feet, and pressed his ear against the air-lock door, for
that mysterious sound was coming from outside the hull. now he could
hear it, faint but distinct, and it set his skin crawling with
apprehension. there could be no doubt; it was the sound of countless
dust grains whispering past selene's walls like a ghostly sandstorm.
what did it mean? was the sea once more on the move? if so, would it
take selene with it? yet there was not the slightest vibration or sense
of motion in the cruiser itself; only the outside world was rustling
past very quietly, being careful not to disturb his sleeping companions,
pat tiptoed into the darkened cabin. it was dr. mckenzie's watch. the
scientist was hunched up in the pilofs seat, staring out through the
blinded windows. he turned round as pat approached, and whispered:
"anything wrong at your end?"

"i don't know-come and see." back in the galley, they pressed their ears
against the outer door, and listened for a long time to that mysterious
crepitation. presently mckenzie said: "me dust's moving, an right-but i
don7t see why. that gives us another puzzle to worry about."

"another?"

"yes. i don!t understand whavs happening to the temperature. it's still
going up~ but nothing like as fast as it should." the physicist seemed
really annoyed that his calculations had proved incorrect, but to pat
this was the first piece of good news since the disaster.

"don't look so miserable about it; we all make mistakes. . ind if this
one gives us a few more days to live, rm cer tainly not complaining."

"but i couldnt have made a mistake. the math is elementary. we know how
much heat twenty-two people generate, and it must go somewhere."

"they won't produce so much heat when they're sleeping-, maybe that
explains it."   a fall of moondust  43 "you don!t think rd overlook
anything so obvious as thatl" said the scientist testily. "it helps, but
it isn't enough. there's some other reason why we're not getting as hot
as we should."

"lefs just accept the fact and be thankful," said pat. "meanwhile, what
about this noise?" with obvious reluctance, mckenzie switched his mind
to the new problem.

"the dust's moving, but we aren't, so it's probably merely a local
effecl in fact, it only seems to be happening at the back of the cabin.
i wonder if that has any significance." he gestured to the bulkhead
behind them.

"what's on the other side of thisr' "the motors, oxygen reserve, cooling
equipment..

"cooling equipmentl of course! i remember noticing that when i came
aboard. our radiator fins are back there, aren't they?"

"tbat's right."

"now i see what's happened. they've got so hot that the dust is
circulating, like any liquid that's heated. there's a dust fountain
outside, and it's carrying away our surplus heat. with any luck, the
temperature will stabilize now. we won!t be comfortable, but we can
survive." in the crimson gloom, the two men looked at each other with a
dawning hope. nen pat said slowly: "i'm sure tha'Vs the explanation.
Perhaps our luck's beginning to turn." He glanced at his watch, and did
a quick mental calculation. Irme sun's rising over the Sea about now.
Base will have the dustskis out looking for us, and they must know our
approximate position. Ten to one they'll find us in a few hours."

"Should we tell the Commodoret' "No, let him sleep. He's had a harder
day than any of us. This news can wait until moming .11 When Mckenzie
had left him, Pat tried to resume his interrupted sleep. But he could
not do so; he lay with eyes open in the faint red glow, wondering at
this strange turn of fate. T-he dust that had swallowed and then had
threatened to broil them bad now come to their aid, as its convection
cur. rents swept their surplus heat up to the surface. Whether those
currents would continue to flow when the rising sun Smote the Sea with
its full fury, he could not guess. Outside the wall, the dust still
whispered past, and, suddenly  44  Arthur C. Clarke Pat was reminded of
an antique hourglass he had once been shown as a child. When you turned
it over, sand poured through a narrow constriction into the lower
chamber, and its rising level marked the passage of the minutes and the
hours. Before the invention of clocks, myriads of men must have had
their days divided by such falling grains of sand. But none until now,
surely, had ever had his life span metered out by a fountain of rising
dust.   Chqter 7

In Clavius City, Chief Administrator Olsen and Tourist Commissioner
Davis had just finished conferring with the Legal Department. It had not
been a cheerful occasion; much of the time had been spent discussing the
waivers of responsibility which the missing tourists had signed before
they boarded Selene. Commissioner Davis had been much against this when
the trips were started, on the grounds that it would !care away
customers, but the Administration's lawyers had insisted. Now he was
very glad that they had had their way. He was glad, also, that the Port
Roris authorities had done the job properly; matters like this were
sometimes treated as unimportant formalities and quietly ignored. There
was a full list of signatures for Selene's passengers-with one possible
exception that the lawyers were still arginng about. The incognito
Commodore had been listed as R. S. Hanson, and it looked very much as if
this was the name he had actually signed. The signature was, however, so
illegible that it might well have been

"Hansteen." Until a facsimile was radioed from Earth, no one would be
able to decide this point. It was probably unimportant. Because the
Commodore was traveling on official business, the Administration was
bound to accept some responsibility for him. And for an the other
passengers, it was responsible morally, if not legally. Above all, it
had to make an effort to find them and give them a decent burial. This
little problem had been placed squarely in the lap of Chief Engineer
Lawrence, who was still at Port Roris. He had seldom tackled  anything
with less enthusiasm. While there was a chance that the Selene's
passengers were still alive, he would have moved heaven, Earth, and Moon
to get at them. But now that they must be dead, he saw no point in
risking mea's lives to locate them and dig them out. 45  46  Arthur C.
Clarke

Personally, he could hardly think of a better place to be buried than
among these eternal hills. That they were dead, Chief Engineer Robert
Lawrence did not have the slightest doubt; all the facts fitted together
too perfectly. The quake had occurred at just about the time Selene
should have been leaving Cmter Lake, and the gorge was now half blocked
with slides. Even the smallest of those would have crushed her like a
paper toy, and those aboard would have perished within seconds as the
air gushed out. If, by some million-to-one chance, she had escaped being
smashed, her radio signals would have been received. The tough little
automatic beacon had been built to take any reasonable punishment, and
if that was out. of action, it must have been some crack-up. "Me tint
problem would be to locate the wreck. That might be fairly easy, even if
it was buried beneath a million tons of rubble. There were prospecting
instruments and a whole range of metal detectors that could do the
trick. And when the hull was cracked, the air inside would have rushed
out into the lunar near-vacuum; even now, hours later, there would be
traces of carbon dioxide and oxygen that might be spotted by one of the
gas detectors used for pinpointing spaceship leaks. As soon as the
dust-skis came back to base for servicing and recharging, he'd get them
fitted with leak detectors and would send them sniffing round the
rockslides. No-finding the wreck might be simple--but getting it out
might be impossible. He wouldn!t guarantee that the job could be done
for a hundred million. (And he Could just see the CA.'s face if he
mentioned a sum like that.) For one thing, it was a physical
impossibility to bring heavy equipment into the area-the sort of
equipment needed to move thousands of tons of rubble. The flimsy little
dust-skis were useles& To shift those rockslides, one would have to
float moondozers across the Sea of Thirst, and import whole shiploads of
gelignite to blast a road through the mountains. The whole idea was
absurd. He could understand the Administration's point of view, but he
was damned if he would let his overworked Engineering Division get
saddled with such a Sis "hean task. As tactfully as possible-for the
Chief Administrator was not the sort of man who liked to take no for an
answer-he began to draft his report. Summarized, it might have read:.
"A. The job's almost certainly impossible. B. If it can be   A Fall of
Moondust  47 done at all, it wih cost millions and may involve further
loss of life. C. les, not worth doing anyway." But because such
bluntness would make him unpopular, and he had to give his reasons, the
report ran to over three thousand words. When he had finished dictating,
he paused to marshal his ideas, could think of nothing further, and
added: "Copies to Chief Administrator, Moon; Chief Engineer, Farside;
Supervisor, Traffic Control; Tourist Commissioner; Central Filing.
Classify as Confidential." He pressed the transcription key. Within
twenty seconds an twelve pages of his report, impeccably typed and
punctuated, with several grammatical slips corrected, had emerged from
the office telefax. He scanned it rapidly, in ewe the electrosecretary
had made mistakes. She did this occasionally (all electrosecs were
"she'), especially during rush periods when she might be taking
dictation from a dozen sources at once. in any event, no wholly sane
machine could cope with all the eccentricities of a language like
English, and every wise executive checked his final draft before he sent
it out. Many were the hilarious disasters that had overtaken those who
had left it all to electronics. Lawrence was halfway through this task
when the telephone rang.

"Lagrange 11 on the line, sir," said the operator-a human one, as it
happened. "A Doctor Lawson wants to speak to YOU. st Lawson? Who the
devil's that? the C.E.E. asked himself. Then he remembered; that was the
astronomer who was making the telescopic search. Surely Someone had told
him that it was useless. The Chief Engineer had never had the dubious
Privilege Of meeting Dr. Lawson. He did not know that the astronomer was
a very neurotic and very brilliant Young man-and, what was more
important in this case, a very stubborn one. Lawson had just begun to
dismantle the infrared scanner when he stopped to consider his action.
Since he had practically completed the blasted thing, he might as well
test it, out of sheer scientific curiosity. He prided himself, rightly,
as a practical experimenter; this was something unusual in an age when
most so-called astronomers were really mathematicians who never went
near an observatory. He was now so tired that only sheer cussedness kept
him going. If the scanner had not worked the first time, he WOUI&   48
Arthur C. Clarke

have postponed testing it until he had had some sleep. But by the good
luck that is occasionally the reward of skill, it did work; only a few
minor adjustments were needed before the image of the Sea of Thirst
began to build up upon the viewing screen. It appeared line by line,
like an old-fashioned TV picture, as the infrared detector scanned back
and forth across the face of the Moon. The light patches indicated
relatively warm areas, the dark ones, regions of cold. Almost all the
Sea of Thirst was dark, except for a brilliant band where the rismig sun
had already touched it with fire. But in that darkness, as Tom looked
closely, he could see some very faint tracks, glimmering as feebly as
the paths of snails through some moonlit garden backon Earth. Beyond
doubt, there was the heat trail of Selene; and there also, much fainter,
were, the zigzags of the dust-skis that even now were searching for her.
All the trails converged toward the Mountains of inaccessibility and
there vanished beyond his field of view. He was much too tired to
examine them closely; and in any event it no longer mattered, for this
merely confirmed what was already known. His only satisfaction, which
was of some importance to him, iay in the proof that another piece of
Lawson-built equipment had obeyed his will. For the record, he
photographed the screen, then staggered to bed to catch up with his
arrears of sleep. Three hours later he awoke from a restless slumber.
Despite his extra hour in bed, he was still tired, but something was
worrying him and would not let him sleep. As the faint whisper of moving
dust had disturbed Pat Harris in the sunken Selene, so also, fifty
thousand kilometers away, Tom Lawson was recalled from sleep by a
trifling viriation from the normal. The mind has many watchdogs;
sometimes they bark unnecessarily, but a wise man never ignores their
waming. Still bleary-eyed, Tom left the cluttered little cell that was
his private cabin aboard Lagrange, hooked himself on to the nearest
moving belt, and drifted along the gravityless corridors until he-had
reached the Observatory. He exchanged a surly good morning (though it
was now late in the satellite's arbitrary afternoon) with those of his
colleagues who did not am him in time to take avoiding action. Then,
thankful to be

  A Fall of Moondust  49 alone, he settled down among the instruments
that were the only things he loved. He ripped the photograph out of the
one-shot camera where it had been lying all night, and looked at it for
the first time. It was then that he saw the stubby trail emerging from
the Mountains of Inaccessibility, and ending a very short distance away
in the Sea of Thirst He must have seen it last night when he looked at
the screen-but he had notnoticed it. For a scientist, that was a
serious, almost an unforgivable, lapse, and Tom felt very angry with
himself. He had let his preconceived ideas affect his powers of
observation. What did it mean? He examined the area closely with a
magnifier. The trail ended in a small, diffuse dot, which he judged to
be about two hundred meters across. It was very odd--elmost as if Selene
had emerged from the mountains, and then taken off like a spaceship.
Tom's first theory was that she had blown to pieces, and that this
smudge of heat was the aftermath of the explosion. But in that case,
there would have been plenty of wreckage, most of it fight enough to
float on the dust. The skis could hardly have missed it when they passed
through this area-as the thin, distinctive track of one showed it had
indeed done. There had to be some other explanation, yet the alternative
seemed absurd. it was almost impossible to imagine that anything as
large as Selene could sink without trace in the Sea of Thirst, merely
because there had been a quake in that neighborhood. He certainly could
not call the Moon on the evidence of a single photograph and say,
"You're looking in the wrong place." Though he pretended that the
opinion of others meant nothing to him, Tom was terrified of making a
fool of himself. Before he could advance this fantastic thecry, he would
have to get more evidence. Through the telescope, the Sea was now a flat
and featureless glare of light. Visual observation merely confirmed what
he had proved before sunrise: there was nothing more than a few
centimeters high projecting above the dust surface, The infrared scanner
was no greater help; the heat trails had vanished completely, wiped out
hours ago by the sun. , Tom adjusted the instrument for maximum
sensitivity, and searched the area where the trail had ended. Perhaps
there was some lingering trace that could be picked up even now, some
faint smudge of heat that still persisted, strong enough  50  Arthur C.
Clarke to be detected even in the warmth of the lunar morning. For the
sun was still low, and its rays had not yet attained the murderous power
they would possess at noon. Was it imagination? He had the gain turned M
up, so that the instrument was on the verge of instability. From time to
time, at the very limit of its detecting power, he thought he could see
a tiny glimmer of heat, in the exact area where last night's hw* had
ended. It was all infuriatingly inconclusive-not at all the sort of
evidence that a scientist needed, especially when he was going to stick
his neck out. If he said nothin& no one would ever know, but all his
life he would be haunted by doubts. Yet if he committed himself, he
might raise false hopes, become the laughingstock of the solar system,
or be accused of seeking personal publicity. He could not have it both
ways; he would have to make a decision. With great reluctance, knowing
that he was taking a step from which there could be no turning back, he
picked up the Observatory phone.

"Lawson here," he said. "Get me Luna Central-priority."   Chapter 8

Be  vanom- IN@

Aboard Selene, breakfast had been adequate but hardly inspiring. There
were several complaints from passengers who thought that crackers and
compressed meat, a dab of honey and a glass of tepid water, scarcely
constituted a good meal. But the Commodore had been adamant. "We don't
know how long this has got to last us," he said, "and rm afraid we can't
have hot meals. There's no way of preparing them, and Ws too warm in the
cabin already. Sorry, no more tea or coffee. And frankly, it won't do
any of us much harm to cut down on the calories for a few days." That
came out before he remembered Mrs. Schuster, and he hoped that she
wouldn't take it as a personal affront. Ungirdled after last night's
general clothes-shedding, she now looked rather like a good-natured
hippopotamus, as she lay sprawled over a seat and a half.

"The sun's just risen overhead," continued Hansteen, "the search parties
will be out, and it's only a matter of time before they locate us. It's
been suggested that we have a sweepstake on that; Miss. Morley, who's
keeping the log, will collect your bets.

"Now about our program for the day. Professor Jayawardene, perhaps
you'll let us know what the Entertainment Committee has arranged." - The
Professor was a small, birdlike person whose gentle dark eyes seemed
much too large for him. It was obvious that he had taken the task of
entertainment very seriously, for his delicate brown hand clutched an
impressive sheaf of notes.

"As you know," he said, "my speciality is the theater-but rm afraid that
doesn't help us very much. It would be nice to have a play-reading, and
I thought of writing out some 51  52  Arthur C. Clarke

parts; unfortunately, we're too short of paper to make that possible. So
we'll have to think of something else. "rhere's not much reading matter
on board, and some of it is rather specialized. But we do have two
novels--a university edition of one of the classic Westems, Shane, and
this new historical romance, The Orange and the Apple. The suggestion is
that we form a panel of readers and go through them. Has anyone any
objection-or any better ideas?"

"We want to play poker," said a firm voice from the rear.

"But you can't play poker all the time," protested the Professor, thus
showing a certain ignorance of the nonacademic world. The Commodore
decided to go to his rescue.

"Me reading need not interfere with the poker," he said. "Besides, I
suggest you take a break now and then. Those cards won't last much
longer."

"Well, which book shall we start on first? And any volunteers as
readers? ru be quite happy to do so, but we want some variety."

"I object to wasting our time on The Orange and the Apple," said Miss.
Morley. "It's utter trash, and most of it iser-near-pornography."

"How do you know?" asked David Barrett, the Englishman who had commended
the tea. The only answer was an indignant sniff. Professor Jayawardene
looked quite unhappy, and glanced at the Commodore for support. He did
not get any; Hansteen was studiously looking the other way. If the
passengers relied on him for everything, that would be fatal. As far as
possible, he wanted them to stand on their own feet.

"Very well," said the Professor. "ro prevent any argument, well start
with Shane." Ilere were several protesting cries of: "We want The Orange
and the Applel" but, surprisingly, the Professor stood firm. "Ies a very
long book," he said. "I really doet think we'll have time to finish it
before we're rescued." He cleared his throat, looked around the cabin to
see if there were any further objections, and then started to read in an
extremely pleasant though rather singsong voice. "'Introduction: The
Role of the Western in the Age of Space. By Karl Adams, Professor of
English. Being based on the 2037 Kingsley Amis Seminars in Criticism at
the University of Chicago." The poker players were wavering; one of them
was nervously examining the wom pieces of paper that served as   A Fall
of Moondust  53

cards. The rest of the audience had settled down, with looks of boredom
or anticipation. Miss. Wilkins was back in the air-lock galley, checking
the provisions. The melodious voice continued: "'One of the most
unexpected literary phenomena of our age has been the revival, after
half a century of neglect, of the romance known as the "T*restem." These
stories, set in a background extremely limited in both space and
time--the United States of America, circa 1865-1880-were for a
considerable period one of the most popular forms of fiction the world
has ever known. Millions were written, almost an published in cheap
magazines and shoddily produced books, but out of those millions, a few
have survived both as literature and as a record of an age-though we
must never forget that the writers were describing an era that had
passed long before they were bom. ""With the opening up of the solar
system in the 1970's. the earth-based frontier of the American West-
seemed so ludicrously tiny that the reading public lost interest in il
This, of course, was as illogical as dismissing Hamlet on the grounds
that events restricted to a small and drafty Danish castle could not
possibly be of universal significance. ""During the last few years,
however, a reaction has set in. I am creditably informed that Western
stories are among the most popular reading matter in the libraries of
the space liners now plying between the planets. Let us see if we can
discover the reason for this apparent paradox-this link between the Old
West and the New Space. " 'perhaps we can best do this by divesting
ourselves of all our modem scientific achievements, and imagining that
we are back in the incredibly primitive world of 1870. Picture a vast,
open plain, stretching away into the distance until it merges into a
far-off line of misty mountains. Across that plain is crawling, with
agonizing slowness, a line of clumsy wagons. Around them ride men on
horseback, bearing guns--for this is Indian territory. ""It will take
those wagons longer to reach the mountains than a star-class liner now
requires to make the journey from Earth to Moon. The space of the
prairie was just as great, therefore, to the men who challenged it as
the space of the solar system is to us. This is one of the links we have
with the Western; there are others, even more fundamental. To  54
Arthitr C. Clwke

understand them, we must first consider the role of the epic in
literature. ...1 11 It seemed to be going well, thought the Commodore.
An hour would be long enough; at the end of that time Professor J. would
be through the introduction and well, into the story. Then they could
switch to something else, preferably at an exciting moment in the
narrative, so that the audience would be anxious to get back to it. Yes,
the second day beneath the dust had started smoothly, with everyone in
good heart. But how many days were there sffl to go?

The answer to that question depended upon two men who had taken an
instant dislike to each other even though they were fifty thousand
kilometers apart. As he listened to Dr. Lawson's account of his
discoveries, the Chief Engineer found himself tom in opposing
directions. The astronomer had a most unfortunate method of approach,
especially for a youngster who was addressing a very senior official
more than twice his age. He talks to me, thought Lawrence, at first more
amused than angry, as if rin. a retarded child, who has to have
everything explained to him in words of one syllable. When Lawson had
finished, the C.E.E. was silent for a few seconds as he examined the
photographs that had come over the telefax while they were talking. The
earlier one, taken before sunrise, was certainly suggestive-but it was
not enough to prove the case, in his opinion. And the one taken after
dawn showed nothing at all. on the reproduction he had received. There
might have been something on the original print, but he would hate to
take the word of this unpleasant young man for it. "This is very
interesting, Doctor Lawson," he said at last

"Ies a great pity, though, that you didn't continue your observations
when you took the first photos. Then we might have had something more
conclusive." Tom bridled instantly at this criticism, despite-or perhaps
because of-the fact that it was well-founded.

"If you think that anyone else could have done better-~" he snapped.

"Oh, rm not suggesting that," said Lawrence, anxious to keep the peace.

"But where do we go from here? The spot you indicate may be fairly
small, but its position is uncertain by at least half a kilometer. There
may be nothing visible on   A Fall of Moondust  5S

the surface, even in daylight. Is there any way we can pinpoint it more
accurately?" 'qberes one very obvious method. Use this same technique at
ground level . Go over the area with an infrared scanner. That will
locate any hot spot, even if ifs only a fraction of a degree warmer than
its surroundings."

"A good idea," said Lawrence. III see what can be arranged, and will
call you back if I need any further information. Thank you very
much-Doctor." He hung up quickly, and wiped his brow. Then he
immediately put through another call to the satellite.

"Lagrange H? Chief Engineer, Earthside, here. Give me the Director,
please. ... Professor Kotelmkov? This is Lawrenm ... I'm fine, thanks.
Ive been talking to your Doctor Lawson... No, he hasn't done anything,
except nearly make me lose my temper. Hes been looking for our missing
dust-cruiser, and he thinks hes found her. What rd like to know is-how
competent is het' In the next five minutes, the Chief Engineer learned a
good deal about young Dr. Lawson; rather more, in fact, than he had any
right to know, even over a confidential circuit. When Professor
Kotelnikov had paused for breath, he interjected sympathetically: "I can
understand why you put up with him Poor kid-I thought orphanages like
that went out with Dickens and the twentieth century. A good thing it
did burn down. Do you suppose he set fin to it? No. don't answer
that-you!ve told me hes a first-class observer, and that's an I want to
know. Thanks a lot. See you down here someday?" in the next half-hour,
Lawrence made a dozen calls to points all over the Moon. At the end of
that time, he had accumulated a large amount of information; now he had
to act on it. At Plato observatory, Father Ferraro thought the idea was
perfectly plausible. In fact , he had already suspected that the focus
of the quake -was under the Sea of Thirst rather than the Mountains of
Inaccessibility, but couldn't prove it because the Sea had such a
damping effect on all vibrations. No, a complete set of soundings had
never been made; it would be very tedious and time consuming. Hed probed
it himself in a few places with telescopic rods, and had always hit
bottom at less than forty meters. His guess for the average depth was
under ten meters, and it was much shallower rmmd  56  Arthur C. Clarke

the edges. No, he didn1 have an infrared detector, but the astronomers
on Farside might be able to help. Sorry, no I.R. detector at Dostoevski.
Our work is all in the ultraviolet. Try Verne. Oh yes, we used to do
some work in the infrared, a couple of years back-taking spectrograms of
giant red stars. But do you know what? There were enough traces of lunar
atmosphere to interfere with the readings, so the whole program was
shifted out into space. Try Lagrange. It was at this point that Lawrence
called Traffic Control for the shipping schedules from Earth, and found
that he was in luck. But the next move would cost a lot of money, and
only the Chief Administrator could authorize it. That was one good thing
about Olsen; he never argued with his technical staff over matters that
were in their province. He listened carefully to Lawrence's story, and
went straight to the main point.

"If this theory is true," he said, "there's a chance that they may still
be alive, after all."

"More than a chance; I'd say it's quite likely. We know the Sea is
shallow, so they can't be very deep. The pressure on the huff would be
fairly low; it may still be intact."

"So you want this fellow Lawson to help with the search." The Chief
Engineer gave a gesture of resignation. "He's about the last person I
want," he answered. "But I'm afraid we've got to have him."

1  11   Chqter 9

The skipper of the cargo liner A uriga was furious, and so was his
crew-but there was nothing they could do about it. Ten hours out from
Earth and five hours from the Moon they were ordered to stop at
Lagrange, with all the waste of speed and extra computing that implied.
And to make matters worse, they were being diverted from Clavius City to
that miserable dump Port Roris, practically on the other side of the
Moon. The ether crackled with messages canceling dinners and
assignations all over the southern hemisphere. Not far from fun, the
mottled silver disc of the Moon, its eastern limb wrinkled with easily
visible mountains, formed a dazzling background to Lagrange 11 as Auriga
came to rest a hundred kilometers earthward of the station. She was
allowed no closer; the interference produced by her equipment, and the
glare of her jets, had already affected the sensitive recording
instruments on the satellite. Only old-fashioned chemical rockets were
permitted to operate in the immediate neighborhood of Lagrange; plasma
drives and fusion plants were strictly taboo. Carrying one small case
full of clothing, and one large case full of equipment, Tom Lawson
entered the liner twenty minutes after his departure from Lagrange. The
shuttle pilot had refused to hurry, despite urgings from Auriga. The new
passenger was greeted without warmth as he came aboard; he would have
been received quite differently had anyone known his mission. The Chief
Administrator, however, had ruled that it should be kept secret for the
present; he did not wish to raise false hopes among the relatives of the
lost passengers. The Tourist Commissioner had wanted an immediate
release, maintaining that it would prove that they were doing their
best, but Olsen had said firmly: "Wait until he produces 57  58  Arthur
C. Clarke

results. Then you can give something to your friends in the news
agencies .91 Me order was already too late. Aboard Auriga, Maurice
Spenser, Bureau Chief of laterplanet News, was on his way to take up his
duties in Clavius City. He was not sure if this was a promotion or
demotion from Peking, but it would certainly be a change. Unlike all the
other passengers, he was not in the least annoyed by the change of
course. The delay was on the firm's time, and, as an old newsman, he
always welcomed the unusual, the break in the established routine. it
was certainly odd for a Moon-bound liner to waste several hours and an
unimaginable amount of energy to stop at Lagrange, just to pick up a
dour-faced young man with a couple of pieces of baggage. And why the
diversion from Clavius to Port Roris?"Top-level instructions from Earth
'. said the skipper, and seemed to be telling the truth when he disowned
all further knowledge. It was a mystery, and mysteries were Spensees
business. He made one shrewd guess at the reason, and was right-or
almost right-the first time. it must have something to do with that lost
dust-cruiser there had been such a fuss about just before he left Earth.
This scientist from Lagrange must have some information about her, or
must be able to assist in the search. But why the wrecy? Perhaps there
was some scandal or mistake that the Lunar Administration was trying to
hush up. The simple and wholly creditable reason never occurred to
Spenser. He avoided speaking to Lawson during the remainder of the brief
trip, and was amused to note that the few passengers who tried to strike
up a conversation were quickly rebuffed. Spenser bided his time, and
that time came thirty minutes before landing. It was hardly an accident
that he was sitting next to Lawson when the order came to fasten seat
belts for deceleration. With the fifteen other passengers, they sat in
the tiny, blacked-out lounge, looking at the swiftly approaching Moon.
Projected on a viewing screen from a lens in the outer ha the image
seemed sharper and more brilliant even than in red life, It was as if
they were inside an old-fashioned camera obscura; the arrangement was
much safer than having an actual observation window-a structural hazard
that spaceship designers fought against tooth and nail. That
dramatically expanding landscape was a glorious and   A Fall of
Moondust  59

unforgettable sight, yet Spenser could give it only half his attention.
He was watching the man beside him, his intense aquiline features barely
visible in the reflected light from the screen.

"Isn't it somewhere down there," he said, in his most casual tone of
voice, "that the boatload of tourists has just been lost?"

"Yes," said Tom, after a considerable delay.

"I don't know my way about the Moon. Any idea where they're supposed to
ber, Even the most unco-operative of men, Spenser had long ago
discovered, could seldom resist giving information if you made it seem
that they were doing you a favor, and gave them a chance of airing their
superior knowledge. The trick worked in nine cases out of ten: it worked
now with Tom Lawson.

"They're down there," he said, pointing to the center of the screen.
"Those are the Mountains of Inaccessibility; that's the Sea of Thirst
all around them." Spenser stared, in entirely unsimulated awe, at the
sharply etched blacks and whites of the mountains toward which they were
falling. He hoped the pilot-human or electronicknew his job; the ship
seemed to be coming in very fast Then he realized that they were
drifting toward the flatter territory on- the left of the picture; the
mountains and the cunous gray area surrounding them were sliding away
from the center of the screen.

"Port Roris," Tom volunteered unexpectedly, pointing to a barely visible
black mark on the far left

"T'hat's where were landing."

"Welli rd hate to come down in those mountains," said Spenser,
determined to keep the conversation on target. "They'll never find the
poor devils if they're lost in that wilderness. Anyway, aren't they
supposed to be buried under an avalanche?" Tom gave a superior laugh.
"They're supposed to be," he said.

"Why-isn't that true?" A little belatedly, Tom remembered his
instructions.

"Can't tell you anything more," he replied in that same smug, cocksure
voice. Spenser dropped the subject; he had already learned enough to
convince him of one thing. Clavius City would  60  Arthur C. Clarke

have to wait; he had better hang on at Port Roris for a while. He was
even more certain of this when his envious eyes saw Dr. Tom Lawson
cleared through Quarantine, Customs, Immigration, and Exchange Control
in three minutes flat.

Had any eavesdropper been listening to the sounds in~ide Selene, he
would have been very puzzled. The cabin was reverberating unmelodiously
to the sound of twenty-one voices, in almost as many keys, singing

"Happy Birthday to You." When the din had subsided, Commodore Hansteen
called out: "Anyone else besides Mrs. Williams who just remembered that
it's his or her birthday? We know, of course, that some ladies like to
keep it quiet when they reach a certain

There were no volunteers, but Duncan Mckenzie raised his voice above the
generallaughter.

"Mere's a funny thing about birthdays-I used to win bets at parties with
it. Knowing that there are three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year, how large a group of people would you think was needed before you
had a fifty-fifty chance that two of them shared the same birthday?"
After a brief pause, while the audience considered the question, someone
answered: "Why, half of three hundred and sixty-five, I suppose. Say a
hundred and eighty." "Mavs the obvious answer-and it's completely wrong.
If you have a group of more than twenty-four people, the odds are better
than even that two of them have the same birthday."

"That's ridiculousl Twenty-four days out of three sixty-five can't give
those odds."

"Sorry-it does. And if there are more than forty people, nine times out
of ten two of them will have the same birthday. There's a sporting
chance that it might work with the twenty-two of us. What about trying
it, Commodore?"

"Very well. I'll go round the room, and ask each one of you for his date
of birth."

"Oh no," protested Mckenzie. "People cheat if you do it that way. The
dates must be written down, so that nobody knows anyone else's
birthday." An almost blank page from one of the tourist guides was
sacrificed for this purpose, and torn up into twenty-two slips. When
they were collected and read, to everyone's astonish  A Fall of
Moondust  61 ment-and Mckenzie's gratification-it turned out that both
Pat Harris and Robert Bryan had been born on May 23.

"Pure luck!" said a skeptic, thus igniting a brisk mathemat. ical
argument among half a dozen of the male passengers. The ladies were
quite uninterested; either because they did not care for mathematics or
because they preferred to ignore birthdays. When the Commodore decided
that this had gone on long enough, he rapped for attention.

"Ladies and gentlemenl" he called. "Let's get on with the next item on
our program. rm pleased to say that the Entertainment Committee,
consisting of Mrs. Schuster and Professor Jaya---er, Professor J.-has
come up with an idea that should give us some amusement They suggest
that we set up a court and cross-examine everybody here in turn. The
object of the court is to find an answer to this question: Why did we
come to the Moon in the first place? Of course, some people may not want
to be examined-for all I know, half of you may be on the run from the
police, or your wives. You're at liberty to refuse to give evidence, but
don't blame us if we draw the worst possible conclusions if you do.
Well, what do you think of the ideat' It was received with fair
enthusiasm in some quarters and ironic groans of disapproval in others,
but since there was no determined opposition, the Commodore went ahead.
Almost automatically, he was elected President of the Court; equally
automatic was Irving Schuster's appointment as General Counsel.  I "Me
front-right pair of seats had been reversed so that it faced toward the
rear of the cruiser. T'his served as the bench, shared by the President
and Counsel. When everyone had settled down, and the Clerk of the Court
(viz. Pat Harris) had called for order, the President made a brief
address.

"We are not yet engaged in criminal proceedings," he said, keeping his
face straight with some difficulty. "This is purely a court of enquiry.
If any witness feels that he is being intimidated by my learned
colleague, he can appeal to the Court. Will the Clerk call the first
witness?"

"Er-your Honor-who Is the first witness?" said the Clerk, reasonably
enough. it took ten minutes of discussion among the Court, learned
Counsel, and argumentative members of the public to settle  62  Arthur
C. Clarke

this important Point. Finally it was decided to bave a ballot, and the
first name to be produced was David Barrett's. Smiling slightly, the
witness came forward and took his stand in the narrow space before the
bench. Irving Schuster, looking and feeling none too legal in undershirt
and underpants, cleared his throat impressively.

"Your name is David Barrett?" :-That is correct." "Your occupation?"
"Agricultural engineer, retired."

"Mr. Barrett, will you tell this court exactly why you have come to the
Moon.

"I was curious to see what it was like here and I had the time and
money.'s Irving Schuster looked at Barrett obliquely through his thick
glasses; he had always found this had an unsettling effect on witnesses.
To wear spectacles was almost a sign of ec centricity in this age, but
doctors and lawyers--especially the older ones-still patronized them;
indeed, they had come to symbolize the legal and medical professions.

"You were 'curious to see what it was like,'" Schuster quoted. "That's
no explanation. Why were you curioust' "I am afraid that question is so
vaguely worded that I cannot answer it. Why does one do anything?"
Commodore Hansteen relaxed with a smile of pleasure. This was just what
he wanted--to get the passengers argwng and talking freely about
something that would be of mutual interest to them all, but would arouse
no passions or contro versy (It might do that, of course, I but it was
up to him to keep 'o;5er in Courl) "I admit," continued Counsel, "that
my question might have been more specific. I will try to reframe it." He
thought for a moment, shuffling his notes. They consisted merely of
sheets from one of the tourist guides. He had scribbled a few lines of
questioning in the margins, but they were really for effect and
reassurance. He had never liked to stand up in court without something
in his hand; there were times when a few seconds of imaginary
consultation were priceless.

"Would it be fair to say that you were attracted by the Moon~s scenic
beauties?"

"Yes, that was part of the attraction. I had seen the tourist   A Fall
of Moondust  63

literature and movies, of course, and wondered if the reality would live
up to it."

"And has it done so?"

"I would say," was the dry answer, '~ffiat it has exceeded my
expectations." There was general laughter from the rest of the company.
Commodore Hansteen rapped loudly on the back of his seat.

"Orderl" he called. "If there are any disturbances, I shall have to
clear the Courtt" This, as he had intended, started a much louder round
of laughter, which he let run its natural course. When the mirth had
died down, Schuster continued in his most

"Where were you on the night of the twenty-second?" tone of voice. "This
is very interesting, Mr. Barrett. You have come all the way to the Moon,
at considerable expense, to look at the view. Tell me-have you ever seen
the Grand Canyon?"

"No. Have you?"

"Your Honorl" appealed Schuster. "rhe witness is being unresponsive."
Hansteen looked severely at Mr. Barrett, who did not seem In the least
abashed.

"You are not conducting this enquiry, Mr. Barretl Your job is to
answer-questions, not to ask them."

"I beg the CDURFS pardon, my Lord," replied the witness.

"Er-am. I 'my Lord'?" said Hansteen uncertainly, tu 1 9 to Schuster. "I
thought I was 'your Honor.' " The lawyer gave the matter several seconds
of solemn thought.

"I suggest-your Honor-that each witness use the procedure to which he is
accustomed in his country. As long as due deference is shown to the
Court, thitt would seem to be sufficient."

"Very well-proceed," Schuster turned to his witness once more.

"I would like to know, Mr. Barrett, why you found it necessary to visit
the Moon while there was so much of Earth that you hadn!t seen. Can you
give us any valid reason for this illogical behaviorr, It was a good
question, just the sort that would interest everyone, and Barrett was
now making a serious attempt to answer it "rve seen a fair amount of
Earth," he said slowly, with his precise English accent-almost as great
a rarity now as  64  Arthur C. Ckirke Schuster's spectacles. "rve
stayed at the Hotel Everest, been to both Poles, even gone to the bottom
of the Calypso Deep. So I know something about our planet Let's say it
had lost its capacity to surprise me. The Moon, on the other hand, was
completely new-a whole world less than twenty-four hours away. I
couldn't resist the novelty." Hansteen listened to the slow and careful
analysis with only half his mind. He was unobtrusively examining the
audience while Barrett spoke. By now he had formed a good picture of
Selene's crew and passengers, and had decided who Could be relied upon,
and who would give trouble, if conditions became bad. The key man, of
course, was Captain Harris. The Commodore knew his type well; he had met
it so often in space-and more often still at such training
establishments as Astrotech. (Whenever he made a speech there, it was to
a front row of freshly scrubbed and barbered Pat Harrises.) Pat was a
competent but unambitious youngster with mechanical interests who had
been lucky enough to find a job that suited him perfectly, and which
made no greater demands upon him than care and courtesy. (Attractive
lady passengers, Hansteen was quite certain, would have no complaints on
the latter score.) He would be loyal, conscientious, and unimaginative,
would do his duty as he saw it, and in the end would die gamely without
making a fuss. That was a virtue not possessed by many far abler men,
and it was one they would need badly aboard the cruiser if they were
still here five days from now. Miss. Wilkins, the stewardess, was almost
as important as the captain in the scheme of things; she was certainly
not the Stereotyped space-hostess image, all vapid charm and frozen
smile. She was, Hansteen had already decided, a young lady of character
and considerable education-but so, for that matter, were many space
hostesses he had known. Yes, he was lucky with the crew. And what about
the passengers? They were considerably above average, of course;
otherwise they would not have been on the Moon in the first place. There
was an impressive reservoir of brains and talent here inside Selene, but
the irony of the situation was that neither brains nor talent could help
them now. What was needed was character, fortitudo-or, in a blunter
word, bravery. Few men in this age ever knew the need for physical
bravery. From birth to death, they never came face to face with   A
Fall of Moondust  65

danger. The men and women aboard Selene had no training for what lay
ahead, and he could not keep them occupied much longer with games and
amusements. Some time in the next twelve hours, he calculated, the first
cracks would appear. By then it would be obvious that somothing was
holding up the search parties, and that if they found the cruiser at
all, the discovery might be too late. Commodore Hansteen glanced swiftly
round the cabin. Apart from their scanty clothing and slightly unkempt
appearance, all these twenty-one men and women were still rational,
self-controlled members of society. Which, he wondered, would be the
first to go?   Chapter 10

Dr. Tom Lawson, so Chief Engineer Lawrence had decidedt was an exception
to the old saying

"To know all is to forgive all.- The knowledge that the astronomer had
passed a love less, institutionalized childhood and had escaped from his
origins by prodigies of pure intellect, at the cost of all Other human
qualities, helped one to understand him-but not to like him. It was
singular bad luck, thought Lawrence, that he was the only scientist
within three hundred thousand kilome ters who happened to have, an
infrared detector, and knew how to use it.  ea s He was now sitting in
the Observer's s't Of Du ter Two' making the flnal adjustments to the
crude but effective lashup he had contrived. A camera tripod had been
fixed on the canopy of the skl and the detector had been mounted on
this, in such a way that it could pan in any direction. it seemed to be
working, but that was hard to tell in this small, pressurized hangar,
with a confused jumble of heat sources all around it. The real test
could come only out in the Sea of Thirst.

"Ifs ready," said Lawson presently to the Chief Engineer. "Let me have a
word with the man who's going to run it." The C.E.E. looked it him
thoughtfully, still trying to make up his mind. There were strong
arguments for and against what he was considering now, but whatever he
did, he must not let his personal feelings intrude. The matter was far
too important for that.

"You can wear a space suit, can't you?" he asked Lawson. "rve never worn
one in my life. They're only needed for going outside-and we leave t~at
to the engineers."

"Well, now you have a chance of learning," said the C.E.E., ignoring the
jibe. (If it was a jibe; much of Lawson!s rudeness, he decided, was
indifference to the social graces 66   A Fall of Moondust  67

rather than defiance of them.) ""Mere's not much to it, when you're
riding a ski. You'll be sitting still in the observer's seat and the
autoregulator takes care of oxygen, temperature, and the rest. There's
only one problem-" "Viiat's thatr' "How are you for claustrophobiar' Tom
hesitated, not liking to admit any weakness. He had passed the usual
space tests, of course, and suspected-quite rightly-that he had had a
very close call on some of the psych ratings. Obviously he was not an
acute claustrophobe, or he could never have gone aboard a ship. But a
spaceship and a space suit were two very different things.

"I can take it," he said at last.

"Don't fool yourself if you can't," Lawrence insisted. "I think you
should come with us, but rm not tying to bully you into false heroics.
AJI I ask is that you make up your mind before we leave the hangar. It
may be a little too late to have second thoughts when we're twenty
kilometers out to

Tom looked at the ski and bit his lip. The idea of skimming across that
infernal lake of dust in such a flimsy contraption seemed crazy-but
these men did it every day. And if anything went wrong with the
detector, there was at least a slight chance that he could fix it.

"Here's a suit that's your size," said Lawrence. "Try it on-it may help
you to make up your mind." Tom struggled into the flaccid yet crinkly
garment, closed the front zipper, and stood, still helmetless, feeling
rather a fool. The oxygen flask that was buckled to his harness seemed
absurdly small, and Lawrence noticed his anxious glance.

"Don't worry; that's merely the four-hour reserve. You won't be using it
at all. The main supply's on the ski. Mind your nose--here comes the
helmet." Tom could tell, by the expressions of those around him, that
this was the moment that separated the men from the boys. Until that
helmet was seated, YOU were still part of the human race; afterward, you
were alone, in a tiny mechanical world of your own. There might be other
men only centimeters away, but you had to peer at them through thick
plastic, talk to them by radio. You could not even touch them, except
through double layers of artificial skin. Someone had  68  Arthur C.
Clarke

once written that it was very lonely to die in a space suit. For the
fiat time, Tom realized how true that must be. The Chief Engineer's
voice sounded suddenly, reverberantly, from the tiny speakers set in the
side of the helmet. `Me only control you need worry about is the
intercomthat's. the panel on your right Normally youll be connected to
your pilot. The circuit will be live all the time you're both on the
ski, so you can talk to each other whenever you feel like it. But as
soon as you disconnect, you'll have to use radio-as you!re doing now to
listen to me. Press your Transmit button and talk back." T&afs that red
Emergency button for-rl asked Tom, after he had obeyed this order.

"You Won't need it-I hope. That actuates a homing beacon and sets up a
radio racket until someone comes to find you. Don't touch any of the
gadgets on the suit without instructions from us--especially that one."

"I won%" promised Tom. "Let's go." He walked, rather ciumsily~for he was
used to neither the suit nor-the lunar gravity--over to Duster Two and
took his place in the observer's seat. A single umbilical cord, plugged
inappropriately into the right hip, connected the suit to the sus
oxygen, communications, and power. The vehicle could k  though hardly
comfortable, for three or four 4: p ys' Thwas barely large enough for
the two dust4ds, and it took only a few minutes for the pumps to ex
haust its air. As the suits stiffened around bun, Tom felt a touch of
panic. The Chief Engineer and two pilots were watching, and he did not
wish to give them the satisfaction of thinking that he was afraid. No
man could help feeling tense when, for the first time in his life, he
went into vacuum. The clamshell doors pivoted open. There was a faint
tag of ghostly fingers as the last vestige of air gushed out, plucking
feebly at his suit before it dispersed into the void. And then, flat and
featureless, the empty gray of the Sea of Thirst stretched out to the
horizon. For a moment it seemed impossible that here, only a few meters
away, was the reality behind the images he had studied from far out in
space. (Who was looking through the hundred-centimeter telescope now?
Was one of his colleagues watching, even at this moment, from his
vantage point high above the Moon?) But this was no picture painted on a
  A Fall of Moondust  69

screen by "g electrons; this was the real thing, the strange, amorphous
stuff that had swallowed twenty-two men and women without trace And
across which he, Tom Lawson, was about to venture on this insubstantial
craft. He had little time to brood. The ski vibrated beneath him as the
fans darted to spin; then, following Duster One, it glided slowly out
onto the naked surface of the Moon. ne low rays of the rising sun smote
them as soon as they emerged from the long shadow of the Port buildings.
Even with the protection of the automatic filters, it was dangerous to
look toward the blue-white fury in the eastern sky. No. Tom corrected
himself, this is the Moon, not Earth; here the sun rises in the west. So
we're heading northeast, into the Sinus Roris, along the track Selene
followed and never retraced. Now that the low domes of the Port were
shrinking visibly toward the horizon, he felt something of the
exhilaration and excitement of all forms of speed. The sensation lasted
only for a few minutes, until no more landmarks could be seen and they
were caught in the illusion of being poised at the very center of an
infinite plain. Despite the turmoil of the spinning fans, and the slow,
silent fail of the dust parabolas behind them, they seemed to be
motionless. Tom knew that they were traveling at a speed that would take
them clear across the Sea in a couple of hours, yet he had to wrestle
with the fear that they were lost light-years from any hope of
salvation. It was at this moment that he began, a little late in the
game, to feel a grudging respect for the men he was working with. This
was a good place to start checking his equipment. He switched on the
detector, and set it scanning back and forth over the emptiness they had
just crossed. With calm satisfaction, he noted the two blinding trails
of light stretching behind them across the darkness of the Sea. TIAS
test, of course, was childishly easy; Selene's fading thermal ghost
would be a million times harder to spot against the w 1 9 heat of dawn.
But it was encouraging. If he had failed here, there would have been no
point in continuing any further.

"Hoves it workh*T' said the Chief Engmeer, who must have been watching
from the other ski.

"Up to specification," replied Tom cautiously. "It seems to be behaving
normally." He aimed the detector at the shrinking crescent of Earth;
that was a slightly more difficult tar 70  Arthur C. Ckwke

get, but not a really hard one, for it needed little sensitivity to pick
up the gentle warmth of the mother world when it was projected against
the cold night of space. Yes, there it. was-Earth in the far infrared, a
strange and at fm glance baffling sight For it was no longer a
clean-cut, geometrically perfect crescent, but a ragged mushroom with
its stem lying along the equator. it took Tom a few seconds to interpret
the picture. Both Poles had been chopped off. That was understandable,
for they were too cold to be detected at this setting of the
sensitivity. But why that bulge across the unilluminated night side of
the planet? Then he realized that he was seeing the warm glow of the
tropical oceans, radiating back into the darkness the heat that they had
stored during the day. In the infrared, the equatorial night was more
brilliant than the polar day. it was a reminder of the fact, which no
scientist should ever forget that human senses perceived only a tiny,
distorted picture of the Universe. Tom Lawson had never heard Of Plato's
analogy of the chained prisoners in the cave, watching shadows cast upon
a wall and trying to deduce from them the realities of the external
world. But here was a demonstration that Plato would have appreciated:
Which Earth was "rea'? rbe perfect crescent visible to the eye, the
tattered mushroom slowing in the far infrared--or neither?

The office was small, even for Port Roris--which was purely a transit
station between Earthside and Farside, and a jumping-off point for
tourists to the Sea of Thirst (Not that any looked like jumping off in
that direction for some time.) The Port had had a brief moment of glory
thirty Years before, as the base used by one of the Moows few successful
criminals--Jerry Budker, who had made a small fortune dealing in fake
pieces of Lunik II . He was hardly as exciting as Robin Hood or Billy
the Kid, but he was the best that the Moon could offer. Maurice Spenser
was rather glad that Port Roris was such quiet little one-dome town,
though he suspected that it would not stay quiet much longer, especially
when his colleagues at Clavius woke up to the fact that an I.N. Bureau
Chief was lingering here unaccountably, and not hurrying southward to
the lights of the big (pop. 52,647) city. A guarded cable to Earth had
taken care of his superiors, who would trust his judgment and would
guess the story he was after.   A Fall of Moondust  71

Sooner or later, the competition would guess it, too-but by that time.,
he hoped to be well ahead. The man he was conferring with was Auriga's
still-disgruntled skipper, who had just spent a complicated and
unsatisfactory hour on the telephone with his agents at Clavius, trying
to arrange transshipment of his cargo Mciver, Mcdonald, Macarthy and
Mcculloch, Ltd. seemed to think it was his fault that Auriga had put
down at Roris. In the end, he had hung up after telling them to sort it
out with the head office. Since it was now early Sunday morning in
Edinburgh, this should hold them for a while. Captain Anson mellowed a
little after the second whisky; a man who could find Johnnie Walker in
Port Roris was worth knowing, and he asked Spenser how he had managed
it. "rbe power of the press," said the other with a laugh. -A reporter
never reveals his sources; if he did, he wouldn't stay in business for
long." Ele opened his brief case, and puffed out a sheaf of maps and
photos.

"I had an even bigger job getting these at such short notic&--and I'd be
obliged, Captain, if you would say nothing at all about this to anyone.
It!s extremely confidential, at least for the moment."

"Of course. What's it about--Selene?"

"So you guessed that, too? You're right. It may come to nothing, but I
want to be prepared." He spread one of the photos across the desk. It
was a view of the Sea of Thirst, from the standard series issued by the
Lunar Survey and taken from low-altitude reconnaissance satellites.
Though this was an afternoon photograph, and the -shadows thus pointed
in the opposite direction, it was almost identical with the view Spenser
had had just before landing. He had studied it so closely that he now
knew it by hearl "The Mountains of Inaccessibility," he said. "They rise
very steeply out of the Sea to an altitude of almost two thousand
meters. That dark oval is Crater Lak&---~' "Where Selene was lost?"

"Where she may be lost: there's now some doubt about that. Our sociable
young friend from Lagrange has evidence that she's actually gone down in
the Sea of Thirst-round about this area. In that case, the people inside
her may be alive. And in that case, Captain, there's going to be one
hell of a salvage operation only a hundred kilometers from here.  72
Arthur C. Clarke

Port Roris will be the biggest new center in the solar system."

"Phewl So thats your game. But where do I come in?" Once again Spenser
placed his finger on the map. Right here, Captain. I want to charter
your ship. And I want you to land me, with a cameraman and two hundred
kilos of TV equipment, on the western wall of the Mountains of
Inaccessibility."

"I have no further questions, your Honor," said Counsel Schuster,
sitting down abruptly.

"Very wall," replied Commodore Hansteen. "I must order the witness not
to leave the jurisdiction of the Court." Amid general laughter, David
Barrett returned to his seat. He had put on a good performance; though
most of his replies had been serious and thoughtful, they had been
enlivened with Bashes of humor and had kept the audience contimiously
interested. If all the other witnesses were equally forthcoming, that
would solve the problem of entertainment, for as long as it had to be
solved. Even if they used up all the memories of four lifetimes in every
day--a complete impossibility, of course-someone would still be talking
when the oxygen container gave its last gasp. Hansteen looked at his
watch. There was still an hour to go before their frugal lunch. They
could revert to Shane, or start (despite Miss. Morley's objections) on
that preposterous historical novel. But it seemed a pity to break off
now, while everyone was in a receptive mood.

"H you all feel the same way about it," said the Commodore, "I'll call
another witness."

"I'll second that" was the quick reply from Barrett, who now considered
himself safe from further inquisition. Even the poker players were in
favor, so the Clerk of the Court pulled another name out of the
coffeepot in which the ballot papers had been mixed. He looked at it
with some surprise, and hesitated before reading it out.

"Whaivs the matter?" said the Court. "Is it your name?"

"Er-no," replied the Clerk, glancing at learned Counsel with a
mischievous grim He cleared Ins throat and called: "Mrs. Myra Schusterl"

"Your Honor-I objectl" Mrs. Schuster rose slowly, a formidable figure
even though she had lost a kilogram or   A Fall of Moondust  73 two
since leaving Port Roris. She pointed to her husband, who looked
embarrassed and tried to hide behind his notes. "Is it fair for him to
ask me questions?" vrn willing to stand down," said Irving Schuster,
even before the Court could say "objection sustained."

"I am prepared to take over the examination," said the Commodore, though
his expression rather belled this. 'tut is there anyone else who feels
qualified to do so?" There was a short silence; then, to Hansteen's
surprised relief, one of the poker players stood up. "Though rin not a
lawyer, your Honor, I have some slight legal experience. I'm willing to
assist"

"Very good, Mr. Harding. Your witness." Harding took Schuster's place at
the front of the cabin, and surveyed his captive audience. He was a
well-built, toughlooking man who somehow did not fit his own
description, that he was a bank executive. Hansteen had wondered,
fleetingly, if this was the truth.

"Your name is Myra Schuster?"

"Yes."

"And what, Mrs. Schuster, are you doing on the Moon?" The witness
smiled.

"I'liat's an easy one to answer. They told me I'd weigh only twenty
kilos here-so I came."

"For the record, why did you want to weigh twenty kilcons Mrs. Schuster
looked at Harding as if he had said something very stupid.

"I used to be a dancer once," she said, and her voice was suddenly
wistful, her expression faraway. "I gave that up, of course, when I
married Irving." "T&y 'of course,' Mr~. Schuster?" The witness glanced
at her husband, who stirred a little uneasily, looked as if he might
raise an objection, but then thought better of it.

"Oh, he said it wasn't dignified. And I guess he was right-the kind of
dancing I used to do." This was too much for Mr. Schuster. He shot to
his feet, ignoring the Court completely, and protested: "Really, Myral
There's no need--2' "Oh, vector it out, Irv1" she answered, the
incongruously old-fashioned slang bringing back a faint whiff of the
nineties. "What does it matter now? Let's stop acting and be ourselves.
I don't mind these folks knowing that I used to dance at the   Arthur
C. Clarke

$Blue Asterold'-or that you got me off the hook when the cops raided the
place." Irving subsided, spluttering, while the Court dissolved in a
roar of laughter which his Honor did nothing to quell. This release of
tensions was precisely what he had hoped for; when people were laughing,
they could not be afraid. And he began to wonder still more about Mr.
Harding, whose casual yet shrewd questioning had brought this about. For
a man who said he was not a lawyer, he was doing pretty well. It would
be interesting to see how he performed in the witness box, when it was
Schuster's turn to ask the questions.   Chapter It so  memo.

At last there was something to break the featureless flatness of the Sea
of Thirst. A tiny but brilliant splinter of light had edged itself above
the horizon, and as the dust-skis raced forward, it slowly climbed
against the star&. Now it was joined by another-and a third. The peaks
of the Mountains of Inaccessibility were rising over the edge of the
Moon. As usual, there was no way of judging their distance; they might
have been small rocks a few paces away, or not part of the Moon at all.
but a giant, jagged world, millions of kilometers out in space. In
reality, they were fifty kilometers distant; the dust-skis would be
there in half an hour. Tom Lawson looked at them with thankfulness. Now
there was something to occupy his eyes and mind; he felt he would have
gone crazy if he had had to stare at this apparently infinite plain for
much longer. He was annoyed with himself for being so illogical. He knew
that the horizon was really very close and that the whole Sea was only a
small part of the Moon's quite limited surface. Yet as he sat here in
his space suit, apparently getting nowhere, he was reminded of those
horrible dreams in which you struggled with all your might to escape
from some frightful peril but remained stuck helplessly in the same
place. Tom often had such dreams, and worse ones. But now he could see
that they were making progress, and that their long, black shadow was
not frozen to the ground, as it sometimes seerned. He focused the
detector on the rising peaks, and obtained a strong reaction. As he had
expected, the exposed rocks were almost at boiling point where they
faced the sun. Though the lunar day had barely started, the Mountains
were already burning. It was much cooler down here at

"Sea" level. The surface dust would not reach its maximum temperature
until noon, stiff seven days away. That 75  76  Arthur C. Clarke

was one of the biggest Points in his favor; though the day had already
begun, he still had a sporting chance of detecting any faint source of
heat before the full fury of the day had overwhelmed it. Twenty minutes
later, the mountains dominated the sky, and the skis slowed down to
half-speed. We don't want to overrun their track," explained Lawrence.
"If you look carefully, just below that double peak on the right, you'll
see a dark vertical line. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Mat's the gorge leading to Crater Lake. The patch of heat you detected
is three kilometers to the west of it, so it's still out of sight from
here, below our horizon. Which direction do you want to approach from?"
Lawson thought this over. It would have to be from the north or the
south. If he came in from the west, he would have those burning rocks in
his field of view; the eastern approach was even more impossible, for
that would be into the eye of the rising sun.

"Swing round to the north," he said. "And let me know when we're within
two kilometers of the spot." The skis accelerated once more. Though
there was no hope of detecting anything yet, he started to scan back and
forth over the surface of the Sea. This whole mission was based upon one
assumption; that the upper layers of dust were normally at a uniform
temperature, and that any thermal disturbance was due to man. If this
was wrongit was wrong. He had miscalculated completely. On the viewing
screen, the Sea was a mottled pattern of light and shade, or, rather, of
warmth and coldness. The temperature differences were only fractions of
a degree, but the picture was hopelessly confused. There was no
possibility at all of locating any individual source of heat in that
thermal maze. Sick at heart, Tom L4wson looked up from the viewing
screen and stared incredulously across the dust. To the unaided eye, it
was still absolutely featureless-the same unbroken gray it had always
been. But by infrared, it was as dappled as the sea during a cloudy day
on Earth, when the waters are covered with shifting patterns of sunlight
and shadow. Yet there were no clouds here to cast their shadows on this
and sea; this dappling must have some other cause. Whatever it might be,
Tom was too stunned to look for the scientific   A Fall of Moondust  77

explanation. He had come all the way to the Moon, had risked neck and
sanity on this crazy ride-and at the end of it all, some quirk of nature
had ruined his carefully planned experiment. It was the worst possible
luck, and he felt very sorry for himself. Several minutes later, he got
around to feeling sorry for the people aboard Selene.

"So," said the skipper of the Auriga, with exaggerated imlin, "you would
like to land on the Mountains of Inaccessibility. That's a verra
interesting idea." It was obvious to Spenser that Captain Anson had not
taken him seriously; he probably thought he was dealing with a crazy
newsman who had no conception of the problems involved. That would have
been correct twelve hours before, when the whole plan was only a vague
dream in Spensees mind. But now he had all the information at his
fingertips, and knew exactly what he was doing.

"I've heard you boast, Captain, that you could land this ship within a
meter of any given point. Is that right?"

"Well-with a little help from the computer."

"That's good enough. Now take a look at this PHOTOGMPV "What is it?
Glasgow on a wet Saturday night?"

"I'm afraid it's badly overenlarged, but it shows all we want to know.
It's a blowup of this area-just below the western peak of the Mountains.
rll have a much better copy in a few hours, and an accurate contour
map-Lunar Survey's drawing one now, working from the photos in their
files. My point is that there's a wide ledge here-wide enough for a
dozen ships to land. And it's fairly flat, at least at these points
here, and here. So a landing would be no problem at from your point of
view." 4'No technical problem, perhap& But have you any idea what it
would cost?"

"That's my affair, Captain-or my network's. We think it may be
worthwhile, if my hunch comes off." Spenser could have said a good deal
more, but it was bad business to show how much you needed someone else!s
wares. This might well be the news story of the decade-the first space
rescue that had ever taken Place literally under the eyes of the TV
cameras. There had been enough accidents and disasters in space, heaven
knows, but they had lacked an elements of drama or suspense. Those
involved had died in 78  Arthur C. Clarke

stantly, or had been beyond all hope of rescue when their predicament
was discovered. Such tragedies produced headlines, but not sustained
human-interest stories like, the one he sensed here.

"There's not only the money," said the Captain, though his tone implied
that there were few matters of greater importance. "Even if the owners
agree, you'll have to get special clearance from Space Control,
Earthside."

"I know; someone is working on it now. That can be organized."

"And what about Lloyd's? Our policy doesn't cover little jaunts like
this." Spenser leaned across the table, and prepared to drop his
city-buster.

"Captain," he said slowly, "Interplariet News is prepared to deposit a
bond for the insured value of the ship-which I happen to know is a
somewhat inflated six million four hundred and twenty-five thousand and
fifty sterling dollars." Captain Anson blinked twice, and his whole
attitude changed immediately. Then, looking very thoughtful, he poured
himself another drink.

"I never imagined rd take up mountaineering at my time of life," he
said.

"But if youre fool enough to plonk down six million dollars-then my
heart's in the highlands."

To the great relief of her husband, Mrs. Schuster's evidence had been
interrupted by lunch. She was a talkative lady, and was obviously
delighted at the first opportunity she had had in years of letting her
hair down. Her career, such as it wow, had not been particularly
distinguished when fate and the Chicago police had brought it to a
sudden close, but she had certainly got around, and had known many of
the great performers at the turn of the century. To not a few of the
older passengers, her reminiscences brought back memories of their own
youth, and faint echoes from the songs of the nineteen-nineties. At one
point, without any protest from the Court, she led the entire company in
a rendering of that durable favorite, "Space-suit Blues." As a
morale-builder, the Commodore decided, Mrs. Schuster was worth her
weight in gold--and that was saying a good deal. After lunch (which some
of the slower eaters managed to stretch to half an hour, by chewing each
mouthful fifty times) book-reading was resumed, and the agitators for
The Orange   A Fall of Moondust  79 and the Apple finally got their
way. Since the theme was English, it was decided that Mr. Barrett was
the only man for the job. He protested with vigor, but all his
objections were shouted down.

"Oh, very well," he said reluctantly. "Here we go. Chapter One. Drury
Lane. 1665 The author certainly wasted no time. Within three pages, Sir
Isaac Newton was explaining the law of gravitation to Mistress Gwyn, who
had already hinted that she would like -to do something in return. What
form that appreciation would take, Pat Harris could readily guess, but
duty called him. This entertainment was for the passengers; the crew had
work to do. "Tbere?s still one emergency locker Ive not opened," said
Miss. Wilkins as the air-lock door thudded softly behind them, shutting
off Mr. Barrett's carefully clipped accents. "Were low on crackers and
jam, but the compressed meat is holding out .91 -rm not surprised,-
answered Pat. "Everyone seems to be getting sick of it. Let's see those
inventory sheets." The stewardess handed over the typed sheets, now much
annotated with pencil marks.

"We'll start with this box. Whafs inside it?"

"Soap and paper towels."

"Well, we can't eat them. And this one?"

"Candy. I was saving it for the celebration-whc11 they find us." "That's
a good idea, but I think you might break some Of it out this evening.
One piece for every passenger, as a nightcap. And this?"

"A thousand cigarettes."

"Make sure that no one sees them. I wish you hadn!t told me." Pat
grinned wryly at Sue and passed on to the next item. It was fairly
obvious that food was not going to be a major problem, but they had to
keep track of it. He knew the ways of Administration; after they were
rescued, sooner or later some human or electronic clerk would insist on
a strict accounting of all the food that had been used. After they were
rescued. Did he really believe that this was going to happen? They had
been lost for more than two days, and there had not been the slightest
sign that anyone was looking for them. He was not sure what signs there
could be, but he had expected some.  so  Arthur C. Clarke

He stood brooding in silence, until Sue asked anxiously: "What's the
trouble, Pat? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no," he said sarcastically. "We'll be docking at Base In five
minutes. It's been a pleasant trip, don't you thinkt' Sue stared at him
incredulously; then a flush spread over her cheeks, and her eyes began
to brim with tears. "Tm. sorry," said Pat, instantly contrite. "I didn!t
mean that. Its been a big strain for us both, and you've been wonderful.
I don't know what we'd have done without you, Sue." ~ She dabbed her
nose with a handkerchief, gave a brief smile, and answered: "That's all
right; I understand." They were both silent for a moment, Then she
added: "Do you really think we're going to get out of thisr' He gave a
gesture of helplessness.

"Who can tell? Anyway, for the sake of the passengers, we!ve got to
appear confident. We can be certain that the whole Moon's looking for
us. I can't believe it will take much longer."

"But even if they find us, how are they going to get us outr Pat's eyes
wandered to the external door, only a few centimeters away. He could
touch it without moving from this spot; indeed, if he immobilized the
safety interlock, he could open it, for it swung inward. On the other
side of that thin metal sheet were unknown tons of dust that would come
pouring in, like water into a sinking ship, if there was the slightest
crack through which they could enter. How far above them was the
surface? That was a problem that had worried him ever since they had
gone under, but there seemed no way of finding out. Nor could he answer
Sue's question. It was hard to think beyond the possibility of being
found. If that happened, then surely rescue would follow. The human race
would not let them die, once it had discovered them alive. But this was
wishful thinking, not logic. Hundreds of times in the past men and women
had been trapped as they were now, and all the resources of great
nations had been unable to save them. There were the miners behind
rockfalls, sailors in sunken submarines-and, above all, astronauts in
ships on wild orbits, beyond possibility of interception. Often they had
been able to talk freely with their friends and relatives until the very
end. That had happened only two years ago, when Cassiopeia's main drive
had jammed, and all her energies had   A Fall of Moondust  81

been poured into hurling her away from the sun. She was out 'there now,
heading toward Canopus, on one of the most precigely measured orbits of
any space vehicle. The astronomers would be able to pinpoint her to
within a few thousand kilometers for the next million years. That must
have been a great consolation to her crew, now in a tomb more permanent
than any Pharaoh's. Pat tore his mind away from this singularly
profitless reverie. Their luck had not yet run out, and to anticipate
disaster might be to invite it.

"Urs hurry up and finish this inventory. I want to hear how Nell is
making out with Sir Isaac.- That was a much more pleasant train of
thought, espe.. cially when you were standing so close to a very
attractive and scantily dressed girl. In a situation like this, thought
Pat, women had one great advantage over men. Sue still looked fairly
smart, despite the fact that nothing much was left of her uniform in
this tropical heat. But he, like all the men aboard Selene, felt
scratchily uncomfortable with his three days' growth of beard, and there
was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Sue did not seem to mind
the stubble, though, when he abandoned the pretense of work and moved up
so close that his bristles rubbed against her cheek. On the other hand,
she did not show any enthusiasm. She merely stood there, in front of the
half-empty locker, as if she had expected this and was not in the least
surprised. It was a disconcerting reaction, and after a few seconds Pat
drew away.

"I suppose you think rm an unscrupulous wolf," he said, "trying to take
advantage of you like this."

"Not particularly," Sue answered. She gave a rather tired laugh. "It
makes me glad to know that I'm not slipping.-No girl ever minds a man
starting to make approaches. Irs when he won't stop that she gets
annoyed."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Were not in love, Pat To me, thafs rather important. Even now."

"Would it still be important if you knew we won't get out of thisr, Her
forehead wrinkled in concentration. "rm not sure-but you said yourself
we've got to assume that they'll find us. If we don% then we might as
well give up right away."  82  Arthur C. Clarke

"Sorry," said Pat

"I don't want you under those terms. I like you too much, for one
thing." "Irm glad to hear that You know rve always enjoyed working with
you-there were plenty of other jobs I could have transferred to."

"Bad hick for you," Pat answered, "that you didn't." His brief gust of
desire, triggered by proximity, solitude, scanty clothing, and sheer
emotional strain, had already evaporated.

"Now you're being pessimistic again," said Sue. "You know, that's your
big trouble. You let things get you down. And you won't assert yourself;
anyone can push you around." Pat looked at her with more surprise than
annoyance. 11rd no idea," he said, "that you'd been busy psyching me."

"I haven't But if you're interested in someone, and work with him, how
can you help learning about himr, "Wen, I don't believe that people push
me around."

"No? Who's running this ship now?"

"If you mean the Commodore, that's different. He's a thousand times
better qualified to take charge than I am. And hes been absolutely
correct about it-he's asked my permission all along the line."

"He doesn!t bother now. Anyway, that's not the whole point. Aren!t you
glad he's taken over?" pat thought about this for several seconds. "Men
he looked at Sue with grudging respect.

"Maybe you're right. rve never cared to throw my weight about, or assert
my authority-if I have any. I guess that's why rm driver of a Moon bus,
not skipper of a space liner. Ws a little late to do anything about it
now~" You're not thirty yet." Ivnank you for those kind words. rm
thirty-two. We Harrises retain our youthful good looks wen into old age.
It!s usually all we have left by then." -qrhirty-two-and no steady girl
friend?" Hat thought Pat, there are several things you don't know about
me. But there was no point in mentioning Clarissa and her little
apartment in Copernicus City, which now seemed s I o far away. (And how
upset is Clarissa right now? he won dered. Which of the boys is busy
consoling her? Perhaps Sue is right, after all. I don't have a steady
girl friend. I haven!t had one since yvonne, and that was five years
ago. No, my God--seven years ago.)   A Fall of Moondust  83 "I believe
there's safety in numbers," he said. "One of these days I'll settle
down."

"Perhaps you'll still be saying that when you're forty-or fifty. There
are so many spacemen like that. They haven7t settled down when it's time
to retire, and then it's too late. Look at the Commodore, for example."

"What about him? I'm beginning to get a little tired of the subject."

"He's spent all his life in space. He has no family, no chil-! dren.
Earth can't mean much to him-he's spent so little time there. He must
have felt quite lost when he reached the age limit. This accident has
been a godsend to him; he's really enjoying himself now."

"Good for him; he deserves it. I'll be happy if Ive done a tenth as much
as he has when I've reached his age-which doesn't seem very likely at
the moment" Pat became aware that he was still holding the inventory
sheets; he had forgotten all about them. They were a reminder of their
dwindling resources, and he looked at them with distaste.

"Back to work," he said. "We have to think of the passengers- 99 "If we
stay here much longer," replied Sue, "the passengers will start thinking
of us." She spoke more truthfully than she had guessed.   Chapter 12

Dr. Lawson% silence, the Chief Engineer decided, had gone on long
enough. It was high time to resume communication. "Everything all right,
Doctor?" he asked in his friendliest voice. n  cted . There was a short,
a gry bark, but the anger was dire at the Universe, not at him. It wont
work," Lawson answered bitterly. "The heat image is too confused. There
are dozens of hot spots, not just the one I was expecting."

"Stop your ski. IT come over and have a look." Duster Two slid to a
halt; Duster One eased up beside it until the two vehicles were almost
touching. Moving with surprising ease despite the encumbrance of his
space suit, Lawrence swung himself from one to the other and stood,
gripping the supports of the overhead canopy, behind Lawson. He peered
over the astronomer's shoulder at the image, on the infrared converter.

"I see what you mean; it's a mess. But why was it uniform when you took
your photos?"

"It must be a sunrise effect. The Sea's warming up, and for some reason
it's not heating at the same rate everywhere."

"Perhaps we can still make sense out of the pattern. I notice that there
are some fairly clear areas-there must be an explanation for them. If we
understood what's happening, it might help." Tom Lawson stirred himself
with a great effort. The brittle shell of his self-confidence had been
shattered by this unexpected setback, and he was very tired. He had had
little sleep in the last two days, he had been hurried from satellite to
spaceship to Moon to dust-ski, and after all that, his science had
failed him 84   A Fall of Moondust  85

"Mere could be a dozen explanations," he said dully. "This dust looks
uniform, but there may be patches with different conductivities. And it
must be deeper in some places than in others; that would alter the heat
flow." Lawrence was still staring at the pattern on the screen, trying
to relate it to the visual scene around him.

"Just a minute," he said. "I think you've got something." He called to
the pilot. "How deep is the dust around here?"

"Nobody knows; the Sea's never been sounded property. But iesveryshallow
in these parts-we're near the northern edge. Sometimes we take out a fan
blade on a reef."

"As shallow as that? Well, there's your answer. If there's rock only a
few centimeters below us, anything could happen to the heat pattern. Ten
to one youll find the picture getting simpler again when we're clear of
these shoals. This is only a local effect, caused by irregularities just
underneath us."

"Perhaps you're right," said Tom, reviving slightly. "If Selene has
sunk, she must be in an area where the duses fairly deep. You're sure
it's shallow here?"

"Let's find out; there's a twenty-meter probe on my sld." A single
section of the telescoping rod was enough to prove the point. When
Lawrence drove it into the dust, it penetrated less than two meters
before hitting an obstruction.

"How many spare fans have we got?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Four-two complete sets;" answered the pilot. "But when we hit a rock,
the cotter pin shears through and the fans aren't damaged. Anyway,
they're made of rubber; usually they just bend back. rve only lost three
in the last year. Selene took out one the other day, and Pat Harris had
to go outside and replace it. Gave the passengers some excitement."

"Right-let's start moving again. Head for the gorge; rve a theory that
it continues out underneath the Sea, so the dust will be much deeper
there. If it is, your picture should start getting simpler, almost at
once." Without much hope, Tom watched the patterns of light and shade
flow across the screen. The skis were moving quite slowly now, giving
him time to analyze the picture. They had traveled about two kilometers
when he saw that Lawrence had been perfectly right. The mottlings and
dapplings had begun to disappear; the confused jumble of warmth and
coolness was merging into uniformity. The screen was becoming a flat
gray as the tem 86  Arthur C. Clarke

perature variations smoothed themselves out. Beyond question, the dust
was swiftly deepening beneath them. The knowledge that his equipment was
effective once more should have gratified Tom but it had almost the
opposite result. He could think only of the hidden depths above which he
was floating, supported on the most treacherous and unstable of mediums.
Beneath him now there might be gulfs reaching far down into the Moon's
mysterious heart; at any moment they might swallow the dust-ski, as
already they had swallowed Selene. He felt as if he were tightrope
walking across an abyss, or feeling his way along a narrow path through
a quaking quicksand. All his life he had been uncertain of himself, and
had known security and confidence only through his technical
skills-never at the level of personal relations. No~r the hazards of his
present position were reacting upon those inner fears. He felt a
desperate need for solidity, for something firm and stable to which he
could cling. Over there were the mountains, only three kilometers
away--massive, eternal, their roots anchored in the Moon. He looked at
the sunlit sanctuary of those high peaks as longingly as some Pacific
castaway, helpless upon a drifting raft, might have stared at an island
passing just beyond his reach. With all his heart, he wished that
Lawrence would leave this treacherous, insubstantial ocean of dust for
the safety of the land. "Head for the mountainsi" he found himself
whispering. "Head for the mountainst" There is no privacy in a space
suit-when the radio is switched on. Fifty meters away, Lawrence heard
that whisper and knew exactly what it meant. One does not.become Chief
Engineer for half a world without learnmig as much about men as about
machines. I took a calculated risk, thought LAWRENCE, and it looks as if
it hasn't come off. But I won't give in without a fight; Perhaps I can
still defuse this psychological time bomb before it goes Off. Tom never
noticed the approach of the second ski; he was already too lost in his
own nightmare. But suddenly he was being violently shaken, so violently
that his forehead banged ag '3t h lower rim of his helmet. For a moment
his vision Znblind:d by tears of pain; then, with anger-yet at the same
time with an inexplicable feeling of relief-he found himself looking
straight into the determined eyes of Chief   A Fall of Moondust  97

Engineer Lawrence, and listening to his voice reverberate from the suit
speakers.

"That's enough of this nonsense," said the CE.E. "And 11 trouble you not
to be sick in one of our space suits. Every time that happens it costs
us five hundred stollars to put it back into commission-and even then
it's never quite the same again."

"I wasn't going to be sick-" Tom managed to mutter. Then he realized
that the truth was much worse, and felt grateful to Lawrence for his
tact. Before he could add anything more, the other continued, speaking
firmly but more gently: "No one else can hear us, Tom-we're on the suit
circuit now. So listen to me, and dowt get mad. I know a lot about you,
and I know you've had a hell of a rough deal from life. But you've got a
brain-a damn good brain-so don't waste it by behaving like a scared kid.
Sure, we're all scared kids at some time or other, but this isn't the
time for it. There are twenty-two lives depending on you. In five
minutes, well settle this business one way or the other. So keep your
eye on that screen, and forget about everything else. IM get you out of
here all right-don't you worry about that." Lawrence slapped the
suit-gently, this time,-without taking his eyes off the young
scientist's stricken face. Then, with a vast feeling of relief, he saw
Lawson slowly relax. For a moment the astronomer sat quite motionless,
obviously in full control of himself but apparently listening to some
inner voice. What was it telling him? wondered Lawrence. Perhaps that he
was part of mankind, even though it had condemned him to that
unspeakable orphans' home when he was a child. Perhaps that, somewhere,
in the world, there might be a person who could care for him, and who
Would break through the ice that had encrusted his heart. It was a
strange little tableau, here on this mirror-smooth plain between the
Mountains of Inaccessibility and the rising sun. Like ships becalmed on
a dead and stagnant sea, Duster One and Duster Two, floated side by
side, their pilots playing no part in the conflict of wills that hhd
just taken place, though they were dimly aware of it. No one watching
from a distance could have guessed the issues that had been at stake,
the lives and destinies that had trembled in the balance; and the two
men involved would never talk of it again. Indeed, they were already
concerned with something EJW  88  Arthur C. Clarke

For in the same instant, they had both become aware of a highly ironic
situation. Ali the time they had been standing there, so intent upon
their own affairs that they had never looked at the screen of the
infrared scanner, it had been patiently holding the picture they sought.

When Pat and Sue had completed their inventory and emerged from the
air-lock galley, the passengers were still far bark in Restoration
England. Sir Isaac's brief physics lecture had been followed, as might
easily have been predicted, by a considerably longer anatomy lesson from
Nell Gwyn. The audience was thoroughly enjoying itself, especially as
Barrett's English accent was now going full blast. " "Forsooth, Sir
Isaac, you are indeed a man of great knowledge. Yet, methinks there is
much that a woman might teach you."

"'And what is that, my pretty maid?*' "'Mistress Nell blushed shyly. "
"I fear," she sighed, "that you have given your life to the things of
the mind. You have forgotten, Sir Isaac, that the body, also, has much
strange wisdom." 96 4 "Call me. "Ike,' " said the sage huskily, as his
clumsy fingers tugged at the fastenings of her blouse. " "Not here-in
the palacel" Nell protested, making no effort to hold him at bay. "The
King will be back soon!" " "Do not alarm yourself, my pretty one.
Charles is rois, tering with that scribbler Pepys. Well see naught of
him tonight---~" - If we ever get out of here, thought Pat, we must send
a letter of thanks to the seventeen-year-old schoolgirl on Mars who is
supposed to have written this nonsense. She's keeping everyone amused,
and that's all that matters now. No; there was someone who was
definitely- not amused. He became uncomfortably aware that Miss. Morley
was trying to catch his eye. Recalling his duties as skipper, he turned
toward her and gave her a reassunng but rather stramed smile. She did
not return it; if anything, her expression became even more forbidding.
Slowly and quite deliberately, she looked at Sue Wilkins and then back
at him. There was no need for words. She had said, as clearly as if   A
Fall of Moondust  89

she had shouted it at the top of her voice: "I know what you've been
doing, back there in the air lock." Pat felt his face flame with
indignation, the righteous indignation of a man who had been unjustly
accused. For a moment he sat frozen in his seat, while the blood pounded
in his cheeks. Then he muttered to himself: "I'll show the old bitch."
He rose to his feet, gave Miss. Morley a smile of poisonous sweetness,
and said just loudly enough for her to hear: "Miss. Wilkinsl I think
we've forgotten something. Will you come back to the air lock?" As the
door closed behind them once more, interrupting the narration of an
incident that threw the gravest possible doubts upon the, paternity of
the Duke of St. Albans, Sue Wilkins looked at him in puzzled surprise.

"Did you see that?" he said, still boiling.

"See what?"

"Miss. Morley----~' "Oh," interrupted Sue, "don't worry about her, poor
thing. She's been eyeing you ever since we left the Base. You know what
her trouble is."

"What?" asked Pat, already uncomfortably sure of the answer. sq suppose
you could call it ingrowing virginity.'It's a common complaint, and the
symptoms are always the same. There's only one cure for it." The ways of
love are strange and tortuous. Only ten minutes ago, Pat and Sue had
left the air lock together, mutually agreed to remain in a state of
chaste affection. But now the improbable combination of Miss. Morley and
Neu Gwyn, and the feeling that one might as well be hung for a sheep as
for a lamb-as well as, perhaps, the instinctive knowledge of their
bodies that, in the long run, love was the only defense against
death-had combined to overwhelm them. For a moment they stood motionless
in the tiny, cluttered space of the galley; then, neither knowing who
moved first, they were in each other's arms. Sue had time to whisper
only one phrase before Pat's lips silenced her.

"Not here," she whispered, "in the palacel"   Pik unapter 13

Chief Engineer Lawrence stared into the faintly glowing screen, trying
to read its message. Like all engineers and scientists, he had spent an
appreciable fraction of his life looking at the images painted by
speeding electrons, recording events too large or too small, too bright
or too faint, for human eyes to see. It was more than a hundred years
since the cathode-ray tube had placed the invisible world firmly in
Man's grasp; already he had forgotten that it had ever been beyond his
reach. Tlwo hundred meters away, according to the infrared scanner, a
patch of slightly greater warmth was lying on the face of this dusty
desert. It was almost perfectly circular, and quite isolated; there were
no other sources of heat in the entire field of view. Though it was much
smaller than Jhe spot that Lawson had photographed from Lagrange, it was
in the right area. There could be little doubt that it was the same
thing. There was no proof, however, that it was what they were looking
for. It could have several explanations; perhaps it marked the site of
an isolated peak, jutting up from the depth& almost to the surface of
the Sea. There was only one way to find out.

"You stay here," said Lawrence. "I'll go forward on Duster One. Tell me
when I'm at the exact center of the spot."

"D'you think it will be dangerous?"

"It's not very likely, but there's no point in us both taking a risk."
Slowly, Duster One glided across to that enigmatically glowing patch-so,
obvious to the infrared scanner, yet wholly invisible to the eye.

"A little to the left," Tom ordered. "Another few mepters-you're nearly
there-whoal" 90   A ]Fall of Moondust  91

Lawrence stand at the gray dust upon which his vehicle was floating. At
first sight, it seemed as featureless as any Other portion of the Sea;
then, as he looked more closely, he saw something that raised the
goose-pimples on his skin. When examined very carefully, as he was
examining it now, the dust showed an extremely fine pepper-and-salt
pattern. That pattern was moving; the surface of the Sea war creeping
very slowly toward him, as if blown by an invisible wind. Lawrence did
not like it at an. On the moon, one learned to be wary of the abnormal
and unexplained; it usually meant that something was wrong---or soon
would be. This slowly crawling dust was both uncanny and disturbing. If
a boat had sunk here once already, anything as small as a ski might be
in even greater danger.

"Better keep away " he advised Duster Two. "There's something odd her I
don't understand it." Carefully, he described the phenomenon to Lawson,
who thought it over and answered almost at once: "You say it looks like
a fountain in the dust? That's exactly what it is. We already know
there's a source of heat here. It's powerful enough to stir up a
conveotion current."

"What could do that? It can't be Selene." He felt a wave of
disappointment sweep over him. It was all a wild-goose chase, as he had
feared from the beginning. Some pocket of radioactivity, or an outburst
of hot gases released by the quake, had fooled their instruments and
dragged them to this desolate spot. And the sooner they left it the
better; it might still be dangerous.

"Just a minute," said Tom. "A vehicle with a fair amount of machinery
and twenty-two passengers-that must produce a good deal of heat. Three
or four kilowatts, at least. If this dust is in equilibrium, that might
be enough to start a fountain. % Lawrence thought this was very
unlikely, but he was now willing to grasp at the slimmest straw. He
picked up the thin metal probe, and thrust it vertically into the dust.
At first it penetrated with almost no resistance, but as the telescopic
extensions added to its length, it became harder and harder to 'move. By
the time he had the full twenty meters out, it needed all his strength
to push it downward. The upper end of the probe disappeared into the
dust; he had hit nothing-but he had scarcely expected to succeed on  92
Arthur C. Clarke

this first attempt. He would have to do the job scientifically and lay
out a search pattern. After a few minutes of cruising back and forth, he
had criss-crossed the area with parallel bands of white tape, five
meters apart. Like an old-time farmer planting potatoes, he started to
move along the first of the tapes, driving his probe into the dust. It
was a slow job, for it had to be done conscientiously. He was like a
blind man, feeling in the dark with a thin, flexible wand. If what he
sought was bdyond the reach of his wand, he would have to think of
something else. But he would deal with that problem when he came to it.
He had been searching for about ten minutes when he became careless. It
required both hands to operate the probe, especially when it neared the
limit of it4 extension. He was pushing with all his strength, leaning
over the edge of the ski, when he slipped and fell headlong into the
dust.

Pat was conscious of the changed atmosphere as soon as he emerged from
the air lock. The reading from The Orange and the Apple had finished
some time ago, and a heated argument was now in progress. It stopped
when he walked into the cabin, and there was an embarrassing silence
while he surveyed the scene. Some of the passengers looked at him out of
the comers of their eyes, while the others pretended he wasn!t there.

"Well, Commodore," he said, "what's the trouble?" '~Mere's a feeling,"
Hansteen answered, "that were not doing all we could to get out. rve
explained that we have no alternative but to wait until someone finds
us-but not everybody agrees." It was bound to come sooner or later,
thought Pat As time ran out, and there was no sign of rescue, nerves
would begin to snap, tempers get frayed. There would be calls for
action-my action. It was against human nature to sit 80 and do nothing
in the face of death.

"We've been through this over and over again," he said wearily. "We're
at least ten meters down, and even if we opened the air lock, no one
could get up to the surface against the resistance of the dust."

"Can you be sure of thatr' someone asked.

"Quite sure," Pat answered. "Have you ever tried to swim through sand?
You won't get very far." "What about trying the motors?"   A Fall of
Moondust  93

"I doubt if they'd budge us a centimeter. And even if they did, we'd
move forward-not up." "We could all go to the rear; our weight might
bring the nose UP- to "It's the strain on the hun rm worried about,"
said Pat. "Suppose I did start the motors-it would be like butting into
a brick wall. Heaven knows what damage it might do."

"But thews a chance it might work. Isn't that worth the risk?$' Pat
glanced at the Commodore, feeling a little annoyed that he had not come
to his support. Hansteen stared straight back at him, as if to say,
"I've handled this so far, now it's your turn." Well, that was fair
enough, especially after what Sue had just said. It was time he stood on
his own feet, or at least proved that he could do so.

"The dangees too great," he said flatly. "Were perfectly safe here for
at least another four days. Long before then, we'll be found. So why
risk everything on a million-to-one chance? If it was our last resort,
I'd say yes-but not now." He looked round the cabin, challenging anyone
to disagree with him. As he did so, he could not help meeting Miss.
Morley's eye, nor did he attempt to avoid it. Nevertheless, it was with
as much surprise as embarrassment that he heard her say: "Perhaps the
Captain is in no great hurry to leave. I notice that we haven't seen
much of him lately-or of Miss. Wilkins." Why, you prune-faced bitch,
thought Pat. Just because no man in his right senses "Hold it, Harrisl"
said the Commodore, in the nick of time. "TH deal with this." It was the
first time that Hansteen had really asserted himself; until now, he had
rtm things easily and quietly, or stood in the background and let Pat
get on with the job. But now they were hearing the authentic voice of
authority, like a trumpet call across a battlefield. This was no retired
astronaut speaking; it was a Commodore of Space.

"Miss. Morley," he said, "that was a very foolish and uncalled-for
remark. Only the fact that we are all under considerable strain can
possibly excuse it-.I think you should apologize to the Captain."

"It's true," she said stubbornly. "Ask him to deny it." Commodore
Hansteen had not lost his temper in thirty years, and had no intention
of losing it now. But he knew  94  Arthur C. Clarke

when to pretend to lose it, and in this case little simulation was
necessary. He was not only angry with Miss. Morley; he was annoyed with
Pat, and felt that he had let him down. Of course, there might be
nothing at all in Miss. Morley's accusation, but- Pat and Sue'had
certainly spent a devil of a long time over a simple job. There were
occasions when the appearance of innocence was almost as unportarit as
the thing itself. He remembered an old Chinese proverb: "Do not stoop to
tie your laces in your neighboes melon patch."

"I don7t give a dam," he said in his most blistering voice, "about the
relations, if any, between Miss. Wilkins and the Captain. That's their
own affair, and as long as they do their jobs c:gntly, ing th ptain=
right to interfere. Are you suggest not doing his jobr, "Well-I wouldn't
say that." I~Men please don!t say anything. We have enough problems on
our hands ah-eady. without manufacturing any more." The other passengers
had sat listening with that mixture of embarrassment and enjoyment which
most men feel when they overhear a quarrel in which they have no part.
Though, in a very real sense, this did concern everyone aboard Selene,
for it was the first challenge to authority, the first sign that
discipline was cracking. Until now, this group had been welded into a
harmonious whole, but now a voice had been raised against the elders of
the tribe. Miss. Morley might be a neurotic old maid, but she was also a
tough and determined one. The Commodore saw, with understandable qualms,
that she was getting ready to answer him. No one would ever know just
what she intended to say; for, at that moment , Mrs. Schuster let loose
a shriek alto gether in keeping with her dimensions.

When a man falls on the Moon, he usually has time to do something about
it, for his nerves and muscles are designed to deal with a sixfold
greater gravity. Yet when Chief Engir neer Lawrence toppled off the ski,
the distance was so short that he had no time to react. Almost at once,
he hit the dust-and was enguffed in darkness. He could see absolutely
nothing, except for a very faint florescence from the illuminated
instrument panel inside his suit. With extreme caution, he began to feel
around in the   A Fall of Moondust  95

softly resisting, half-fluid substance in which he was flounder'. ing,
seeking some solid object for support. There was noth. ing; he could not
even guess which direction was up. A mind-sapping despair, which seemed
to drain his body of all its strength, almost overwhelmed hinl His heart
was thumping with that erratic beat that heralds the approach of Panic,
and the final overthrow of reason. He had seen other men become
screaming, struggling animals, and knew that he was moving swiftly to
join them. There was just enough left of his rational mind to remember
that only a few minutes ago he had saved Lawson from this same fate but
he was not in a position to appreciate the irony. He h;d to concentrate
all his remaining strength of will on regaining control of himself, and
checking the thumping in his chest that seemed about to tear him to
pieces. And then, loud and clear in his helmet speaker, came a sound so
utterly unexpected that the waves of panic ceased to batter against the
island of his soul. It was Tom Lawsonlaughing. The laughter was brief,
and it was followed by an apology. "rm sorry' Mr. Lawrence-I couldn't
help it You look so funny there, waving your legs in the sky." The Chief
Engineer froze in his suit. His fear vanished instantly, to be replaced
by anger. He was furious with Lawson, but much more furious with
himself. Of course he had been in no danger; in his inflated suit he was
Eke a balloon floating upon water, and equally incapable of sinking. Now
that he knew what had happened, he could sort matters out by himself. He
kicked purposefully with his legs, paddled with his hands, and rolled
round his center of gravity-and vision returned as the dust streamed off
his helmet. He had sunk, at the most, ten centimeters, and the ski had
been within reach all the time. It was a remarkable achievement to have
missed it completely while he was flailing around like a stranded
octopus. With as much dignity as he could muster, he grabbed the ski and
pulled himself aboard. He did not trust himself to speak, for he was
still breathless from his unnecessary exertions, and his voice might
betray his recent panic. And he was still angry; he would not have made
such a fool of himself in the days when he was working constantly out on
the lunar surface. Now he was out of touch. Why, the last time  96
Arthur C. Clarke

he had wom a suit had been for his annual proficiency check. and then he
had never even stepped outside the air lock. Back on the ski, as he
continued with his probing, his mixftm of fright and anger slowly
evaporated. it was replaced by a mood of thoughtfulness, as he realized
how closelywhetheir he liked it or not-the events of the last half-hour
had linked him with Lawson. True, the astronomer had laughed when he was
floundering in the, dust, but he must have been an irresistibly funny
sight. And Lawson had actually apologized for his mirth. A short time
ago, both laughter and apology would have been equally unthinkable. Then
Lawrence forgot everything else; for his probe hit an obstacle, fifteen
meters down.   Chapter 14

When Mrs. Schuster screamed, Commodore Hansteen's first reaction was: My
God-the woman's going to have hysterics. Half a second later, he needed
all his win power not to join her. From outside the hull, where there
had been no sound for three days except the whispering of the dust,
there was a noise at last. It was unmistakable, and so was its meaning.
Something metallic was scraping along the hull. Instantly, the cabin was
filled with shouts, cheers, and cries of relief. With considerable
difficulty, Hansteen managed to make himself heard. "fbey've found us,"
he said, "but they may not know it. If we work together, they'll have a
better chance of spotting us. Pat, you try the radio. The rest of us
will rap on the hullthe old Morse V sign-Drr Drr Drr DAM Come on-all
togetherl" Selene reverberated with a ragged volley of dots and dashes,
which slowly became synchronized into one resounding tattoo.

"Hold itl" said Hansteen a minute later. "Everyone listen carefullyl"
After the noise, the silence was uncanny-even unnerving. Pat had
switched off the air pumps and fans, so that the only sound aboard the
cruiser was the beating of twenty-two hearts. The silence dragged on and
on. Could that noise, after all, have been nothing but some contraction
or expansion of Selene's own huff? Or had the rescue party-if it was a
rescue party-missed them and passed on across the empty face of the Sea?
Abruptly, the scratching came again. Hansteen checked the renewed
enthusiasm with a wave of his hand. 97  98  Arthur C. Clarke

"Listen, for Gods sake," he entreated. "Let!s see if we can make
anything of it." The scratching lasted only for a few seconds before
being followed once again by that agonizing silence. Presently someone
said quietly, more to break the suspense than to make any useful
contribution, "That sounded like a wire being dragged past Maybe they're
trawling for us."

"Impossible," answered Pat

"The resistance would be too great, especially at this depth. Ifs more
likely to be a rod probing up and down." -Anyway," said the Commodore,
"there!s a search party within a few meters of us. Give them another
tattoo. Once again--all toge Drr Drr Drr DAB . Drr Drr Drr DAH ...
Through Selene's double hull and out into the dust throbbed the fateful
opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as a century earlier it had
pulsed across Occupied Europe. In the pilot's seat, Pat Harris was
saying again and again, with desperate urgency, "Selene calling. Are you
receiving? Over," and then listening for an eternal fifteen seconds
before he repeated the transmission. But the ether remained as silent as
it had been ever since the dust had swallowed them up.

Aboard Aunga, Maurice Spenser looked anxiously at the clock.

"Dammit," he said, "the skis should have been there long ago. When was
their last message?"

"Twenty-five minutes ago," said the ship's Communications officer. -The
half-hourly report should be coming in soon, whether they've found
anything or not"

"Sure you're still on the right frequencyr' "You stick to your business
and III stick to mine," retorted the indignant radioman.

"Sorry," replied Spenser, who had learned long ago when to apologize
quickly. "I'm afraid my nerves are jumping." He rose from his seat, and
started to make a circuit of A ur1ga's little control room. After he had
bumped himself painfully against an instrument panel-he had not yet
grown accustomed to lunar gravity, and was beginning to wonder if he
ever would-he got himself under control once more. This was the worst
part of his job, the waiting until he knew whether or not he had a
story. Already, he had in  A Fall of Moondust  99

curred a small fortune in expenses. They would be nothing compared with
the bills that would soon be accumulating if he gave Captain Anson the
order to go ahead. But in that event his worries would be over, for he
would have his scoop.

"Here they are," said the Communications Officer suddenly. "Two minutes
ahead of time. Sornethines happened."

"rve hit something," said Lawrence tersely, "but I can't tell what it
is."

"How far down?" asked Lawson ahd both pilots simultane. ously.

"About fifteen meters. Take me two meters to the right. I'll try again
.9' He withdrew the probe, then drove it in again when the ski had moved
to the new position.

"Stiff there," he reported, "and at the same depth.. Take me on another
two meters." Now the obstacle was gone, or was too deep for the probe to
reach.

"Nothing there. Take me back in the other direction." It would be a slow
and firing job, charting the outlines of whatever lay buried down there.
By such tedious methods, two centuries ago, men began to sound the
oceans of Earth, lowering weighted lines to the sea bed and then hauling
them tip again. It was a pity, thought Lawrence, that he had no
echo-sounder that would operate here, but he doubted if either kcoustic
or radio waves could penetrate through more than a few meters of the
dust. What a fool-he should have thought of that beforet That was what
had happened to Selene's radio signals. If she had been swallowed by the
dust, it would have blanketed and absorbed her transmissions. But at
this range, if he really was sitting on top of the cruiser ... Lawrence
switched his receiver to the MO0IQCRASH bandand there she was, yelling
at the top of her robot voice. 17he signal was piercingly stron "uite
good enough, he would have thought, to have been picked up by Lagrange
or Port Roris. Then he remembered that his metal Probe was still resting
on the submerged hull; it would give radio waves an easy path to the
surface. He sat listening to that train of pulses for a good fifteen
seconds before he plucked up enough courage for the next move. He had
never really expected to find anything, and  100  Arthur C. Clarke

even now his search might be in vain. "Mat automatic beacon would call
for weeks, like a voice from the tomb, long after Selene's occupants
were dead. Then, with an abrupt, angry gesture that defied the fates to
do their worst, Lawrence switched to the cruiser's own frequency-and was
almost deafened by Pat Harris shouting: "'Selene calling, Selene
calling. Do you receive me? Over." "This is Duster One," he answered.
"C.E.E. speaking. rm. fifteen meters above you. Are you all O.K.? Over."
It was a long time before he could make any sense out of the reply, the
background of shouting and cheering was so loud. That in itself was
enough to tell him that all the Passengers. were alive, and in good
spirits. Listening to them, indeed, one might almost have imagined that
they were holding some drunken celebration. In their joy at being
discovered, at making contact with the human race, they thought that
their troubles were over. 4113uster One calling Port Roris Control,"
said Lawrence, while he waited for the tumult to die down. "We've found
Selene, and established radio contact. judging by the noise that's going
on inside, everyone's quite O.K. She's fifteen meten down, just where
Doctor Lawson indicated. Ill call you back in a few minutes. Out." At
the speed of light, waves of relief and happiness would now be spreading
over the Moon, the Earth, the inner planets, bringing a sudden lifting
of the hearts to billions of people. On streets and slideways, in buses
and spaceships, perfect strangers would turn to each other and say,
"Have You heard? They've found Selene." in all the solar system, indeed,
there was only one man who could not wholeheartedly share the rejoicing.
As he sat on his ski, listening to those cheers from underground and
looking at the crawling pattern in the dust, Chief Engineer Lawrence
felt far more scared and helpless than the men and women trapped beneath
his feet. He knew that he was facing the greatest battle in his life. 
unapter 15

For the fint time in twenty-four hours, Maurice Spenser wai relaxing.
Everything that could be done had been done. Men and equipment were
already moving toward Port Roris. (Lucky about Jules Braques being at
Clavius; he was one of the best cameramen in the business, and they'd
often worked together.) Captain Anson was doing sums with the computer
and looking thoughtfully at contour maps of the Mountains. The crew (all
six) had been rounded up from the bars (all three) and informed that
there was yet another change of route. On Earth, at least a dozen
contracts had been signed and telefaxed, and large sums of money had
already changed hands. The financial wizards of Interplanet News would
be calculating, with scientific precision, just how much they could
charge the other agencies for the story, without driving them to charter
ships of their own-not that this was at all likely, for Spenser had too
great a lead. No competitor could possibly reach the Mountains in less
than forty-eight hours; he would be there in six. Yes, it was very
pleasant to take it easy, in the calm and confident assurance that
everything was under control and going the way you wanted. It was these
interludes that made life worth living, and Spenser knew how to make the
most of them. They were his panacea against ulcers--still, after a
hundred years, the occupational disease of the communications industry.
It was typical of him, however, that he was relaxing on the job. He was
lying, a drink in one hand, a plate of sandwiches by the other, in the
small observation lounge of the Embarkation Building. Through the double
sheets of glass he could see the tiny dock from which Selene had sailed
three days ago. (There was no escaping from those maritime words, 101 
102  Arthur C. Clarke

inappropriate though they were to this situation.) It was merely a strip
of concrete stretching for twenty meters out into the uncanny flatness
of the dust; lying most of its length, like a giant concertina, was the
flexible tube through which the passengers could walk from the Port into
the cruiser. Now open to vacuum, it was deflated and partly collapsed-a
most depressing sight, Spenser could not help thinking. He glanced at
his watch, then at that unbelievable horizon. If he had been asked to
guess, he would have said that it was at least a hundred kilometers
away, not two or three. A few minutes later, a reflected glifit of
sunlight caught his eye. There they were, climbing up over the edge of
the Moon. They would be here in five minutes, out of the air lock in
ten. Plenty of time to finish that last sandwich. Dr. Lawson showed no
signs of recognition when Spenser greeted him; that was not
surprising,-for their previous brief conversation had been in almost
total darkness.

"Doctor Lawson? rm Bureau Chief of Interplanet News. Permission to
recordr' "Just a minute," interrupted Lawrence. "I know the Interplanet
man. You're not Joe Leonard.

"Correct; rin Maurice Spenser. I took over from Joe last week. He has to
get used to Earth gravity again-otherwise he'll be stuck here for life."

"Well, you're damn quick off the mark. It was only an hour ago that we
radioed." Spenser thought it best not to mention that he had already
been here the better part of a day. 4111d still like to know if I can
record," he repeated. He was very conscientious about this. Some newsmen
took a chance and went ahead without permission, but if you were caught,
you, lost your job. As a Bureau Chief, he had to keep the rules laid
down to safeguard his profession, and the public.

"Not now, if you don't mind," said Lawrence. "I've fifty things to
organize, but Doctor Lawson will be glad to talk to you; he did most of
the work and deserves all the credit. You can quote me on that."

"Er-thank you," mumbled Toth, looking embarrassed.

"Right--see you later," said Lawrence. "I'll be at the Local Engineees
office, living on pills. But you might as well get some sleep."   A
Fall of Moondust  103 "Not until I've finished with you," corrected
Spenser, grabbing Tom and aiming him in the direction of the hotel. -
The first person they met in the ten-meter-square foyer was Captain
Anson.

"Irve been looking for you, Mr. Spenser," he said. "The Space-Workers'
Union is making trouble. You know theres a ruling about time off between
trips. Well, it seems that---?" "Pleme, Captain, not now. Take it up
with Interplanefs Legal Department Call Clavius 1234, ask for Harry
Dantzig--hell straighten it out.- He propelled the unresisting Tom
Lawson up the stairs (it was odd to find a hotel without elevators, but
they were unnecessary on a world where you weighed only a dozen or so
kilos) and into his suite. Apart from its excessively small size, and
complete absence of windows, the suite might have been in any cheap
hotel on Earth. The simple chairs, couch , and table were manufac tared
from the very minimum of material, most of it Fiberglas, for quartz was
common on the Moon. The bathroom was perfectly conventional (that was a
relief , after those tricky free-fall toilets), but the bed had a
slightly disconcerting appearance. Some Visitors from Earth found it
difficult to sleep under a sbrth of a gravity, and for their benefit an
elastic sheet could be stretched across the bed and held in place by
light springs. The whole arrangement had a distinct flavor of
straight-jackets and padded cells. Another cheerful little touch was the
notice behind the door, which announced in English, Russian, and
Mandarin that THIS HOTEL is INDEPENDENTLY PRESSURMM IN THE EVENT OF A
DOME FAILURE, YOU WILL BE PERFECTLY SAFE. SHOULD THIS OCCUR, PLEASE
REMAIN IN YOUR ROOM AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. THANK YOU. Spenser
had read that notice several times. He still thought that the basic
information could have been conveyed in a more confident, lighthearted
manner. "Me wording lacked charm. And that, he decided, was the whole
trouble on the Moon. The struggle against the forces of Nature was so
fierce that no energy was left for gracious living. This was most
noticeable in the contrast between the superb efficiency of the
technical services, and the easygoing, take-it-or-leave-it attitude one
met in all the other walks of life. If you complained about the
telephone, the plumbing, the air (especially the  104  Arthur C. Clarke

airl), it was fixed within minutes. But just try to get quick service in
a restaurant or bar ...

"I know you!re very tired," Spenser began, "but rd like to ask a few
questions. You don!t mind being recorded, I hopet1 "No," said Tom, who
had long since passed the stage of caring one way or the other. He was
slumped in a chair, mechanically sipping the drink Spenser had poured
out, but obviously not tasting it "This is Maurice Spenser, Interplanet
News, talking with Doctorthomas Lawson. Now, Doctor, all we know at the
moment is that you and Mister Lawrence, Chief Engineer, Earthside, have
found Selene., and that the people inside are safe. Perhaps you'll tell
us, without going into technical details, just how you-hell and
damnationt" He caught the slowly falling glass without spilling a drop,
then eased the sleeping astronomer over to the couch. Well, he couldn't
grumble; this was the only item that hadn't worked according to plan.
And even this might be to his advantage; for no one else could find
Lawson---still less, interview him-while he was sleeping it off in what
the Hotel Roris, with a fine sense of humor, called its luxury suite.

in Clavius City, the Tourist Commissioner had finally managed to
convince everyone that he had not been playing favorites. His relief at
hearing of Selene's discovery had quickly abated when Reutef's,
Time-Space, Triplanetary Publications, and Lunar News had phoned him in
rapid succession to ask just how Interplanet had managed to break the
story first. It had been on the wires, in fact , even before it had
reached Admi~tion headquarters, thanks to Spenser's thoughtful
monitoring of the dust-ski radios. Now that it was obvious what had
happened, the suspicions of all the other news services had been
replaced by frank admiration for Spenser's luck and enterprise. It would
be a little while yet before they realized that he had an even bigger
trick up his capacious sleeve. The Communications Center at Clavius had
seen many dramatic moments, but this was one of the most unforgetta ble.
It was, thought Commissioner Davis, almost like listening to voices from
beyond the grave. A few hours ago, all these men and women were presumed
dead--yet here they were, fit and cheerful, lining up at that buried
microphone to relay   A Fall of Moondust  105

messages of reassurance to their friends and relatives. Thanks to the
probe which Lawrence had left as marker and antenna, that fifteen-meter
blanket of dust could no longer cut the cruiser off from the rest of
mankind. The impatient reporters had to wait until there was a break in
Selene's transmission before they could get their interviews. Miss.
Wilkins was now speaking, dictating messages that were being handed to
her by the passengers. The cruiser must have been full of people
scribbling telegraphese on the backs of tom-up guidebooks, trying to
condense the maximum amount of information into the minimum number of
words. None of this material, of course, could be quoted or reproduced;
it was all private, and the Postmasters General of three planets would
descend in their combined wrath upon any reporter foolish enough to use
it. Strictly speaking, they should not even be listening in on this
circuit, as the Communicationg Officer had several times pointed out
with increasing degrees of indignation. "... Tell Martha, Jan and Ivy
not to worry about me, ru be home soon. Ask Tom how the Erickson deal
went, and let me know when you call back. My love to you all--George.
End of message. Did you get that? Selene calling. Over."

"Luna Central calling Selene. Yes, we have it all down; we'll see that
the messages get delivered and will relay the answers as soon as they
come in. Now can we speak to Captain Harris? Over." There was a brief
pause, during which the background noises in the cruiser could be
clearly heard-the sound of voices, slightly reverberant in this enclosed
space, the creak of a chair, a muffled

"Excuse me." Then: "Captain Harris calling Central. Over." Commissioner
Davis took the mike.

"Captain Harris, this is the Tourist Commissioner. I know that you all
have messages you wish to send, but the news services are here and are
very anxious to have a few words with you. First of all, could you give
us a brief description of conditions inside Selene? Over."

"Well, it's very hot, and we aren't wearing much clothes. But I don't
suppose we can gnunble about the heat, since it helped you to find us.
Anyway, we've grown used to it. The air's still good, and we have enough
food and water, though the menu is-let's say it's monotonous. What more
do you want to know? Over."  106  Arthur C. Clarke "Ask him about
morale-how are the passengers taking W-are there any sips of strainr
said the representative of Triplanetary Publication& The Tourist
Commissioner relayed the question, rather more tactfully It seemed to
cause slight embarrassment at the other end of the fine.

"Everymes behaved very well," said Pat, just a little too hastily-,"()f
come, we an wonder how long it will take you to get us Oul Can you give
us any ideas on that? Over."

"Chief Engineer Lawrence is in Port Roris now, planning -rescue
operations," Davis answered. "As soon as he has an estimate, well pass
it on. Meanwhile, how are you occupying your time? 4Ner .09 Pat told
him, thereby enormously multiplying the sales of Shane and, less
happily, giving a boost to the flagging fortimes of The Orange and the
Apple. He also gave a brief account of the court pmeedings--now
terminated sine die. ,OMAT must have been amusing entertainment," said
Davis. "But now you won't have to rely on your own resources. We can
send you anything you want-music, plays, discussions. Just give the
word-well fix it. Over." Pat took his time in answering this. The radio
link had already transformed their lives, had brought them hope and put
them in touch with their loved ones. Yet, in a way he was almost sorry
that their seclusion was ended. The heartwarming sense of solidarity,
which even Miss. Morley's outburst had scarcely ruffied, was already a
fading dream. They no longer formed a single group, united in the common
cause of survival. Now their lives had diverged again into a score of
Independent aims and ambitions. Humanity had swallowed them up once
more, as the ocean swallows a raindrop.   Chapter 16

-ON-  so

Chief Engineer Lawrence did not believe that committees ever achieved
anything. His views were well known on the Moon, for shortly after the
last biannual visit of the Lunar Board of Survey, a notice had appeared
on his desk conveying the information: A BOARD IS LONG, BARD, AND
NARROW. rr IS MADE OF WOOD. But he approved of this committee, because
it fulfilled his somewhat stringent requirements. He was chairman; there
were no minutes, no secretary, no agenda. Best of all, he could ignore
or accept its recommendations as he pleased. He was the man in charge of
rescue operations, unless the Chief Administrator chose to sack
him-whicla he would do only under extreme pressure from Earth. The
committee existed merely to provide ideas and technical knowledge; it
was his private brain trust. Only half of its dozen members were
physically present; the rest were scattered over Moon, Earth, and space.
17he soil-physics expert on Earth was at a disadvantage, for owing to
the finite speed of radio waves, he would always be a seoond and a half
in arrears, and by the time his. comments could get to the Moon, almost
three seconds would have passed. He had accordingly been asked to make
notes and to save his views until the end, only interrupting if it was
abso. lutely necessary. As many people had discovered, after setting up
lunar conference calls at great expense, nothing hamstrung a brisk
discussion more effectively than that three-q~ d time Iax For the
benefit of the newcomers," said Lawrence, when the roll call. had been
completed, "IM brief you on the situa tion. Selene is fifteen meters
down, on a level keel. She's urk. damaged, with all. her equipment
functioning, and the twenty-two people inside her are still in good
spirits. They 107  108  Arthur C. Clarke have enough oxygen for ninety
hours-that's the deadline we have to keep in mind.

"For those of you who don't know what Selene looks like, here's a
one-in-twenty scale model." He lifted the model from the table, and
turned it slowly in front of the camera. "She's justlike a bus, or a
small aircraft; the only thing unique is her propulsion system, which
employs these wide-bladed, variable-pitch fans.

"Our great problem, of course, is the dust. If you've never seen it, you
can't imagine what it's like. Any ideas you may have about sand or other
materials on Earth won't apply here; this stuff is more like a liquid.
Here's a sample of it." Lawrence picked up a tall vertical cylinder, the
lower third of which was filled with an amorphous gray substance. He
tilted it, and the stuff began to flow. It moved more quickly than
syrup, more slowly than water, and it took a few seconds for its surface
to become horizontal again after it had been disturbed. No one could
ever have guessed, by looking at it, that it was not a fluid. "This
cylinder is sealed," explained Lawrence, "with a vacuum inside, so the
dust is showing its normal behavior. In air, it's quite different; it's
much stickier, and behaves rather like very fine sand or talcum powder
rd better warn you-it's impossible to make a synthetic sample that has
the properties of the real thing. It takes a few billion years of
desiccation to produce the genume article. If you want to do some
experimenting, we'll ship you as much dust as you like; heaven knows, we
can spare it.

"A few other points. Selene is three kilometers from the nearest solid
land-the Mountains of Inaccessibility. Ilere may be several hundred
meters of dust beneath her, though Wre not sure of that. Nor can we be
quite sure that there will be no more cave-ins, though the geologists
think it's very unlikely.

"Me only way we can reach the site is by dust-ski. We've two units, and
another one is being shipped round from Faraide. They can carry or tow
up to five tons of equipment; the largest single item we could put on a
sledge would be about two tons. So we can't bring any really heavy gear
to the site.

"Well, thats the position. We have ninety hours. Any suggestion? I've
some ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear yours first." "rhere was a
long silence while the members of the com-  A Fall of Moondust  109
mittee, scattered over a volume of space almost four hundred thousand
kilometers across, brought their various talents to bear on the problem.
Ilen the Chief Engineer, Farside, spoke from somewhere in the
neighborhood of Joliot-Curie "It's my hunch that we can't do anything
effective in ninety hours; vn1l have to build special equipment, and
that always takes time. So-we have to get an air line down to Selene.
Where's her umbilical connectionr "Behind the main entrance, at the
rear. I doet see how you can get a line there and couple it up, fifteen
meters down. Besides, everything will be clogged with dust."

"I've a better idea," someone injected. "Drive a pipe down through the
roof."

"You'll need two pipes," pointed out another speaker. '~One to pump in
oxygen, the other to suck out the foul air." ~Mat means using a complete
air purifier. And we won!t even need it if we can get those people out
inside the ninety hours." "Too big a gamble. Once the air supply is
secure, we can take our time, and the ninety-hour deadline won't worry
us."

"I accept that point," said Lawrence. "In fact, I've several men working
on those lines right now. The next question is: Do we try to raise the
cruiser with everyone inside, or do we get the passengers out
individually? Remember, theres Only one space suit aboard her."

"Could we sink a shaft to the door, and couple it to the air lock'r'
asked one of the scientists.

"Same problem as with the air hose. Even worse, in fact, since the
coupling would be so much bigger." "T*Iat about a cofferdam large enough
to go round the whole cruiser? We could sink it round her, then dig out
the dust."

"Yoifd need tons of piles and shorings. And don7t forget, the dam would
have to be sealed off at the bottom. Otherwise the dust would flow back
into it, just as fast as we took it out of the top."

"Can you pump the stuff?" asked someone Ase.

"Yes, with the right kind of impeller. But you cant suck It of course.
it has to be lifted. A normal pump just cavitates."

"This dust," grumbled the Port Roris Assistant Engineer, "has the worst
properties of solids and liquids, with none of their advantages. It
won't flow when you want it to; it won% stay put when you want it to."-
110  Arthur C. Clarke

"Can I make a point?" said Father Ferraro, speaking from Plato. "This
word_~duse is highly misleading. What we have -here is a substance that
can't exist on Earth, so theres no name for it on our language. The last
speaker was quite correct; sometimes you have to think of it as a
nonwetting liquid, rather like mercury, but much lighter. At other
times, it's a flowing solid, like pitch---except that it moves much more
rapidly, of coursd."

"Any way it ran be stabilized?" someone asked.

"I think that's a question for Earth," said Lawrence. "Dootor Evans,
would you like to commentr' Everyone waited for the three seconds,
which, as always, seemed very much longer. Then the physicist answered,
quite as clearly as if he were in the same room- -rve been wondering
about that There might be organic bindem-glue, if you like--that would
make it stick together so that it could be handled more easily. Would
plain water be any use? Have you tried thatt' "No, but we will,"
answered Lawrence, scribbling a note.

"Is the stuff magnetic?" asked the Traffic Control Officer.

"That's a good point," said Lawrence. "is it, Father?"

"Slightly; it contains a fair amount of meteoric iron. But I don't think
that helps us at all. A magnetic field would pull out the ferrous
material, but it wouldn7t affect the dust as a whole."

"Anyway, well try." Lawrence made another note. It was his hope--though
a faint one-that out of this clash of minds would come some bright idea,
some apparently farfetched but fundamentally sound conception that would
solve his problem. And it was his, whether he liked it or not. He was
reible, through his various deputies and departments, for sponsi every
piece of technical equipment on this side of the Moon---especially when
something went wrong with it. "rm very much afraid," said the Clavius
Traffic Control Officer; "that your biggest headache will be logistics.
Every piece of equipment has to be ferried out on the skis, and they
take at least two hours for the round trip-more, if they're towing a
heavy load. Before you even start operating, you'll have to build some
kind of working platform-like a raftthat you can leave on the site. It
may take a day to get that in position, and much longer to get all your
equipment out to A Fall of Moondust  111 "Including temporary living
quarters," added someone. "Me workmen will have to stay on the site."

"That's straightforward; as soon as we fix a raft, we can inflate an
igloo on it."

"Better than that; you won't even need a raft. An igloo will float by
itself."

"Getting back to this raft," said Lawrence, "we want strong, collapsible
units that can be bolted together on the site. Any ideas?"

"Empty fuel tanks?"

"Too, big and fragile. Maybe Tech Stores has something." So it went on;
the brain trust was in session. Lawrence would give it another
half-hour, then he would decide on his plan of action. One could not
spend too much time talking, when the minutes were ticking away and many
lives were at stake. Yet hasty and ill-conceived schemes were worse than
useless, for they would absorb materials and skills that might tilt the
bal-, ance between failure and success. At first sight, it seemed such a
straightforward job. There was Selene, within a hundred kilometers of a
wen-equipped base. Her position was known exactly, and she was only
fifteen meters down. But that fifteen meters presented Lawrence with
some of the most baffling problems of his entire career. It was a career
which, he knew well, might soon terminate abruptly. For it would be very
hard to explain his failure if those twenty-two men and women died.

It was a great pity that not a single witness saw Auriga coming down,
for it was a glorious sight. A spaceship landing or taking off is one of
the most impressive spectacles that Man has yet contrived--excluding
some of the more exuberant efforts of the nuclear engineers. And when it
occurs on the Moon, in slow motion and uncanny silence, it has a
dream-like quality which no one who has seen it can ever forget. Captain
Anson saw no point in trying any fancy navigation, especially since
someone else was paying for the gas. There was nothing in the Master's
Handbook about flying a space liner a hundred kilometers-a hundred
kilometers, indeed!though no doubt the mathematicians would be delighted
to work out a trajectory, based on the Calculus of Variations, using the
very minimum amount of fuel. Anson simply blast  112  Arthur C. Clarke

ed straight up for a thousand kilometers (this qualifying for deep-space
rates under Interplanetary Law, though he would tell Spenser about this
later) and came down again on a normal vertical approach, with final
radar guidance. The ship's computer and the radar monitored each other,
and both were monitored by Captain Anson. Any one of the three could
have done the job, so it was really quite simple and safe, though it did
not look it. Especially to Maurice Spenser, who began to feel a great
longing for the soft green hills of Earth as those desolate peaks clawed
up at him. Why had he talked himself into this? Surely there were
cheaper ways of committing suicide. The worst part was the free fall
between the successive braking periods. Suppose the rockets failed to
fire on command, and the ship continued to plunge Moonward, slowly but
inexorably accelerating until it crashed? It was no use pretending that
this was a stupid or childish fear, because it had happened more than
once. It was not, however, going to happen to Auriga. "Me unbearable
fury of the braking jets was already splashing over the rocks, blasting
skyward the dust and cosmic debris that had not been disturbed in thrice
a billion years. For a moment the ship hovered in delicate balance only
centimeters off the ground; then, almost reluctantly, the spears of
flame that supported her retracted into their scabbards. The widely
spaced legs of the undercarriage made contact, their pads tilted
according to the contours of the ground, and the whole ship rocked
slightly for a second as the shock absorbers neutralized the residual
energy of impact. For the second time inside twenty-four hours, Maurice
Spenser had landed on the Moon. That was a claim that very few men could
make.

"Well,' 9 said Captain Anson, as he got up from the control board, "I
hope you're satisfied with the view. It's cost you plenty-and there's
still that little matter of overtime. According to the Space-Workers'
Union--"

"Have you no soul, Captain? Why bother me with such trivia at a time
like this? But if I may say so without being charged any extra, that was
a very fine landing."

"Oh, it's all part of the day's work," replied the skipper, though he
could not conceal slight signs of pleasure. "By the way, would you mind
initialing the log here, against the time of landing.-   A Fall I of
Moondust "What's that for?" asked Spenser suspiciously.

"Proof of delivery. The log's our prime legal document."

"It seems a little old-fashioned, having a written one," said Spenser.
"I thought everything was done by nucleonics these days."

"Traditions of the service," replied Anson. "Of course, the ship's
flight recorders are running all the time we're under power, and the
trip can always be reconstructed from them. But only the skipper's log
gives the little details that make one voyage different from
another-like Twins born to one of the steerage passengers this morning'
or. "At six bells, sighted the White Whale off the starboard bow."' "I
take it back, Captain," said Spenser. "You do have a soul, after all."
He added his signature to the log, then moved over to the observation
window to examine the view. The control cabin, a hundred and fifty
meters above the ground, had the only direct-vision windows in the ship,
and the view through them was superb. Behind them, to the north, were
the upper ramparts of the Mountains of Inaccessibility, ranging across
half the sky. That name was no longer appropriate, thought Spenser; he
had reached them, and while the ship was here it might even be possible
to do some useful scientific research, such as collecting rock samples.
Quite apart from the news value of.being in such an outlandish place, he
was genuinely interested in what might be discovered here. No man could
ever become so blas6 that the promise of the unknown and the unexplored
completely failed to move him. In the other direction, he could look
across at least forty kilometers of the Sea of Thirst, which spanned
more than half his field of view in a great arc of immaculate flatness.
But what he was concerned with was less than five kilometers away, and
two below. Clearly visible through a low-powered pair of binoculars was
the metal rod that Lawrence had left as a marker, and through which
Selene was now linked with the world. The sight was not impressive-just
a solitary spike jutting from an endless plain-yet it had a stark
simplicity that appealed to Spenser. It would make a good opening; it
symbolized the loneliness of man in this huge and hostile Universe that
he was attempting to conquer. In a few hours, this plain would be far
from lonely, but until then that rod would serve to set the scene, while
the commentators discussed the rescue plans  114  Arthur C. Clarke I

and filled in the time with appropriate interviews. That was not his
problem; the unit at Clavius and the studios back on Earth could handle
it in their stride. He had just one job now-to sit here in his eagle's
nest and to see that the pictures kept coming in. With the big zoom
lens, thanks to the perfect clarity of this airless world, he could
almost get close-ups even from here, when the action started. He glanced
into the southwest, where the sun was lifting itself so sluggish up the
sky. Almost two weeks of daylight, as Earth counted time, still lay
ahead. No need, then, to worry about the lighting. The stage was set. 
Chqter 17

Chief Administrator Olsen seldom made public gestures. He preferred to
run the Moon quietly and efficiently behind the scenes, leaving amiable
extroverts like the Tourist Commissioner to face the newsmen. Ifis rare
appearances were, therefore, all the more impressive-as he intended them
to be. Though millions were watching him, the twenty-two men and women
he was really addressing could not see him at all, for it had not been
thought necessary to fit Selene with vision circuits. But his voice was
sufficiently reassuring; it told them everything that they wanted to
know.

"Hello, Selene," he began. "I want to tell you that all the resources of
the Moon an now being mobilized for your aid. Ile engineering and
technical staffs of my administration are working round the clock to
help you.

"Mister Lawrence, Chief Engineer, Earthside, is in charge, and I have
complete confidence in him. He's now at Port Roris, where the special
equipment needed for the operation is being assembled. It's been
decided-and I'm sure you'll agree with this--that the most urgent task
is to make certain that your oxygen supply can be maintained. For this
reason we plan to sink pipes to you; that can be done fairly quickly,
and then we can pump down oxygen--as well as food and water, if
necessary. So as soon as the pipes are installed, you'll have nothing
more to worry about. It may still take a little time to reach you and
get you out, but you'll be quite safe. You only have to sit and wait for
us.

"Now I'll get off the air, and let you have this channel back so that
you can talk to your friends. I'm sorry about the inconvenience and
strain you've undergone, but that's all over now. We'll have you out in
a day or two. Good luckl" A burst of cheerful conversation broke out
aboard Selene 115  116  Arthur C. CWKE

as soon as Chief Administrator Olsen's broadcast finished. It had had
precisely the effect he had intended; the passengers were already
thinking of this whole episode as an adventure which would give them
something to talk about for the rest of their lives. Only Pat Harris
seemed a little unhappy.

"I wish," he told Commodore Hansteen, "the C.A. hadn't been quite so
confident. On the Moon, remarks like that always seem to be tempting
fate."

"I know exactly how you feel," the Commodore answered. "But you can
hardly blame him-he's thinking of our morale."

"Which is fine, rd say, especially now that we can talk to our friends
and relatives." "rbat reminds me; there's one passenger who hasn't
received or sent any messages. What's more, he doesn't show the
slightest interest in doing so."

"Who's that?" Hansteen dropped his voice still further. '~Me New
Zealander, Radley. He just sits quietly in the corner over there. rm.
not sure why, but he worries me."

"Perhaps the poor fellow has no one on Earth he wants to speak to."

"A man with enough money to go to the Moon must have some friends,"
replied Hansteen. Then he grinned; it was almost a boyish grin, which
flickered swiftly across his face, softening its wrinkles and crow's
feet. "That sounds very cynical-I didn't mean it that way. But I suggest
we keep an eye on Mr. Radley."

"Have you mentioned him to Sue---er, Miss. Wilkins?"

"She pointed him out to me." I should have guessed that, thought Pat
admiringly; not much gets past her. Now that it seemed he might have a
futam, after all, he had begun to think very seriously about Sue, and
about what she had said to him. In his life he bad been in love with
five or six girls--or so he could have sworn at the time--but this was
something different. He had known Sue for over a year, and from the
start had felt attracted to her, but until now it had never come to
anything. What were her real feelings? he wondered. Did she regret that
moment of shared passion, or did it mean nothing to her? She might
argue-and so might he, for that matter-that what had happened in the air
lock was no longer relevant; it was merely the action of a man and a
woman who thought that only a   A Fan of Moondust  117

few hours of life remained to them. They had not been themselves. But
perhaps they had been; perhaps it was the real Pat Harris, the real Sue
Wilkins, that had finally emerged from disguise, revealed by the strain
and anxiety of the past few days. He wondered how he could be sure of
this, but even as he did so, he knew that only time could give the
answer. If there was a clear-cut, scientific test that could tell you
when you were in love, Pat had not yet come across it.

The dust that lapped-if that was the word-against the quay from which
Selene had departed four days ago was only a couple of meters deep, but
for this test no greater depth was needed. If the hastily built
equipment worked here, it would work out in the open Sea. Lawrence
watched from the Embarkation Building as his space-suited assistants
bolted the framework together. It was made, like ninety per cent of the
structures on the Moon, from slotted aluminum strips and bars. In some
ways, thought Lawrence, the Moon was an engineer's paradise. The low
gravity, the total absence of rust or corrosion-indeed, of weather
itself, with its unpredictable winds and rains and frosts-removed at
once a whole range of problems that plagued all terrestrial enterprises.
But to make up for that, of course, the Moon had a few specialities of
its own-like the two-hundred-belaw-zero nights, and the dust that they
were fighting now. The light framework of the raft rested upon a dozen
large metal drums, which carried the prominently stenciled words:
"Contents Ethyl Alcohol. Please return when empty to No. 3 Dispatching
Center, Copernicus." Their contents now were a very high grade of
vacuum; each drum could support a weight of two lunar tons before
sinking. Now the raft was rapidly taking shape. Be sure to have plenty
of spare nuts and bolts, Lawrence told himself. He had seen at least six
dropped in the dust, which had instantly swallowed them. And there went
a wrench. Make an order that all tools must be tied to the raft even
when in use, however inconvenient that might be. Fifteen minutes-not
bad, considering that the men were working in vacuum and therefore were
hampered by their suits. The raft could be extended in any direction as
required, but this would be enough to start with. This first section 
118  Arthur C. Clarke

alone could carry over twenty tons, and it would be some time before
they unloaded that weight of equipment on the site. Satisfied 'with this
stage of the project, Lawrence left the Embarkation Building while his
assistants were still dismantling the raft. Five minutes later (that was
one advantage of Port Roris-you could get anywhere in five minutes), he
was in the local engineering depot. What he found there was not quite so
satisfactory. Supported on a couple of trestles was a two-meter-square
mock-up of Selene's roof-an exact copy of the real thing, made from the
same materials. Only the outer sheet of aluminized fabric that served as
a sun shield was missing; it was so thin and flimsy that it would not
affect the test. The experiment was an absurdly simple one, involving
only ffiree ingredients: a pointed crowbar, a sledge hammer, and a
frustrated engineer, who, despite strenuous efforts, had not yet
succeeded in hammering the bar through the roof. Anyone with a little
knowledge of lunar conditions would have guessed at once why he had
failed. The hammer, obviously, had only a sixth of its terrestrial
weight; thereforeequally obviously-it was that much less effective. The
reasoning would have been completely false. One of the hardest things
for the layman to understand was the difference between weight and mass,
and the inability to do so had led to countless accidents. For weight
was an arbitrary characteristic; you could change it by moving from one
world to another. On Earth, that hammer would weigh six times as much as
it did here; on the sun, it would be almost two hundred times heavier;
and in space it would weigh nothing at all. But in all three places, and
indeed throughout the Universe, its mass or inertia would be exactly the
same. The effort needed to set it moving at a certain speed, and the
impact it would produce when stopped, would be constant dwough all space
and time. On a nearly gravityless asteroid, where it weighed less than a
feather, that hammer would pulverize a rock just as effectively as on
Earth. "T^afs the troubler' said Lawrence. "The rolofs too springy,"
explained the engineer, rubbing the sweat from his brow. -Me crowbar
just bounces back every time it's hit."

"I we. But will that happen when we're using a fifteen-me.   A Fall of
Moondust  119

ter pipe, with dust packed all around it? That may absorb the recoil."

"Perhaps-but look at this~" 11ey kneeled beneath the mock-up and
inspected the underside of the roof. Chalk lines had been drawn upon it
to indicate the position of the electric wiring, which had to be
-avoided at all costs. 'rhis Fiberglas is so tough, you can't make a
clean hole through it. When it does yield, it splinters and tears.
See-its already begun to star. rm afraid that if we try this bruteforce
approach, wet crack the roof."

"And we can't risk that," Lawrence agreed. "Vell, drop the idea. If we
can't pile drive, well have to bore. Use a drill, screwed on the end of
the pipe so it can be detached easily. How are you getting on with the
rest of the plumbna?"

"Almost ready-it's all standard equipment. We should be finished in two
or three hours."

"IT be back in two," said Lawrence. He did not add, as some men would
have done, "I want it finished by then." His staff was doing its utmost,
and one could neither bully nor cajole trained and devoted men into
working faster than their maximum. Jobs like this could not be rushed,
and the deadline for Selene's oxygen supply was still three days away.
In a few hours, if all went well, it would have been pushed into the
indefinite future. Unfortunately, all was going very far from wen.

Commodore Hansteen was the first to recognize the slow. Insidious danger
that was creeping up upon them. He had met it once before, when he had
been wearing a faulty space suit on Ganymede-an incident he had no wish
to recall, but had never really forgotten.

"Pat," he said quietly, making sure that no one could overhear. "Have
you noticed any difficulty in breathingt' Pat looked startled, then
answered, "Yes, now that you mention it. I'd put it down to the heat."

"So did I at first. But I know these symptoms-especially the quick
breathing. Were running into carbon-dioxide poiboning.

"But that's ridiculous. We should be all right for another three
days-unless something has gone wrong with the air purifiers."  120
Arthur C. Clarke

firm afraid it has. What system do we use to get rid of the carbon
dioxidet' "Straight chemical absorption. It's a very simple, reliable
setup; we've never had any trouble with it before."

"Yes, but it's never had to work under these conditions before. I think
the heat may have knocked out the chemicals. Is there any way we can
check them?" Pat shook his head.

"No. IME access hatch is on the outside of the hull."

"Sue, my dear," said a tired voice which they hardly recognized as
belonging to Mrs. Schuster, "do you have anything to fix a headachet'
"If you do," said another passenger, "I'd like some as VM11.99 Pat and
the Commodore looked at each other gravely. The classic symptoms were
developing with textbook precision.

"How long would you guesst' said Pat quietly. 1117wo or three hours at
the most. And it will be at least six before Lawrence and his men can
get here." It was then that Pat knew, without any further argument, that
he was genuinely in love with Sue. For his first reaction was not fear
for his own safety, but anger and grief that, after having endured so
much, she would have to die within sight of rescue.   Chapter 18

When Tom Lawson woke up in that strange hotel room, he was not even sure
who he was, still less where he was. The fact that he had some weight
was his fast reminder that he was no longer on Lagrange-but he was not
heavy enough for Earth. Then it was not a dream; he was on the Moon, and
he really had been out into that deadly Sea of Thirst. And he had helped
to find Selene; twenty-two men and women now had a chance of life,
thanks to his skill and science. After all the disappointments and
frustrations, his adolescent dreams of glory were about to come true.
Now the world would have to make amends to him for its indifference and
neglect. The fact that society had provided him with an education which,
a century earlier, only a few men could afford did nothing to alleviate
Tom7s grudge against it. Such treatment was automatic in this age, when
every child was educated to the level that his intelligence and
aptitudes permitted. Now that civilization needed all the talent that it
could find, merely to maintain itself, any other educational policy
would have been suicide. Tom gave no thanks to society for providing the
environment in which he had obtained his doctor's de. gree; it had acted
in its own self-interest. Yet this morning he did not feel quite so
bitter about life or so cynical about human beings. Success and
recognition are great emollients, and he was on his way to achieving
both. But there was more to it than that; he had glimpsed a deeper
satisfaction. Out there on Duster Two, when his fears and uncertainties
had been about to overwhelm him, he had made contact with another human
being, and had worked in successful partnership with a irnnn whose skill
and courage he could respect. It was only a tenuous contact, and, like
others in the pas4 121  122  Arthur C. Clarke

It might lead nowhere. A part of his mind, Indeed, hoped that it would,
so that he could once again assure himself that all men were selfish,
sadistic scoundrels. Tom could no more escape from his early boyhood
than Charles Dickens, for all his success and fame, could escape the
shadows of the blacking factory that had both metaphorically and
literally darkened his youth. But he had made a fresh beginning---though
he still had very far to go before he became a fully paid-up member of
the human race. When be had showered and tidied himself, he noticed the
message that Spenser had left lying on the table. "Make yourself at
home," it said.

"I've had to leave in a hurry. Mike Graham is taking over from me--call
him at 3443 as soon as you're awake." rm hardly likey to call him betore
rm awake, thought Tom, whose excessively logical mind loved to seize on
such looseness of speech. But he obeyed Spenser's request, heroically
resisting the impulse to order breakfast first. When he got through to
Mike Graham, he discovered that he had slept through a very hectic six
hours in the history of Port Roris, that Spenser had taken off in A udga
for the Sea of Thirst--and that the town was full of newsmen from an
over the Moon, most of them looking for Dr. Lawson.

"Stay right where you are," said Graham, whose name and voice were both
vaguely familiar to Tom; he must have seen him on those rare occasions
when he tuned in to lunar telecasts. "IT be over in five minutes."

"I'm starving," protested Tom.

"Call room sevice and order anything you like---ifs on us. of cours "ut
don1 go outside the suite." Tom did not resent being pushed around in
this somewhat cavalier fashion; it meant, after all, that he was now an
im portimt piece of property. He was much more annoyed by the fact that,
as anyone in Port Roris could have told him, Mike Graham arrived long
before room service. It was a hungry astronomer who now faced Mike's
miniature tele camera and tried to explain, for the benefit of --- W yet
only two hundred minion viewers, exactly how he had been able to locate
Selene. Thanks to the transformation wrought by hunger and his recent
experiences, he made a first-class job of it. A few days ago, had any TV
reporter managed to drag Lawson in front of a camera to explain the
technique of infrared detection, he   A Fall of Moondust  123

would have been swiftly and contemptuously blinded by science. Tom would
have given a no-holds-barred lecture fun of such terms as quantum
efficiency, black-body radiation, and spectral sensitivity that would
have convinced his audience that the subject was extremely complex
(which was true enough) and wholly impossible for the layman to
understand (which was quite false). . But now he carefully and fairly
patiently-despite the occasional urgent proddings of his
stomach-answered Mike Graham's questions in terms that most of his
viewers could understand. To the large section of the astronomical
community which Tom had scarred at some time or other, it was a
revelation. Up in Lagrange II, Professor Kotelnikov summarized the
feelings of all his colleagues when, at the end of the performance, he
paid Tom the ultimate compliment. "Quite frankly," he said in tones of
incredulous disbelief, "I would never have recognized him."

It was something of a feat to have squeezed seven men into Selene's air
lock, but-as Pat had demonstrated-it was the only place where one could
hold a private conference. The other passengers doubtless wondered what
was happening; they would soon know. When Hansteen had finished, his
listeners looked understandably worried, but not particularly surprisedi
They were intelligent men, and must have already guessed the truth.

"I'm telling you first," explained the Commodore, "because Captain
Harris and I decided you were all levelheaded-and tough enough to give
us help if we need it. I hope to God we won't, but there may be trouble
when I make my announcement."

"And if there is?" said Harding.

"If anyone makes a fuss, jump on them," answered the Commodore briefly.

"But be as casual as you can when we go back into the cabin. Don't look
as if you're expecting a fight; that's the best way to start one. Your
job is to-damp out panic before it spreads."

"Do you think it's fair," said Dr. Mckenzie, "not to give an opportunity
to-well, send out some last messages?"

"We thought of that, but it would take a long time and would make
everyone completely depressed. We want to get this through as quickly as
possible. The sooner we act, the better our chance."  124  Arthur C.
Clarke

"Do you really think we have one?" asked Barrett "Yes," said Hansteen,
"though I'd hate to quote the odds. No more questions? Bryan? Johanson?
Right-lets go." As they marched back into the cabin, and took their
places, the remaining passengers looked at them with curiosity and
growing alarm. Hansteen did not keep them in suspense.

"I've some grave news," he said, speaking very slowly. "You must all
have noticed difficulty in breathing, and several of you have complained
about headaches.

"Yes, I'm afraid it's the air. We still. have plenty of oxygen--that's
not our problem. But we can't get rid of the carbon dioxide we exhale;
it's accumulating inside the cabin. Why, we don't know. My guess is that
the heat has knocked out the chemical absorbers. But the explanation
hardly matters, for there's nothing we can do about it." He had to stop
and take several deep breaths before he could continue.

"So we have to face this situation. Your breathing difficulties will get
steadily worse; so will your headaches. I won't attempt to fool you. The
rescue team can't possibly reach us in under six hours, and we cai* wait
that long." There was a stifled gasp from somewhere in the audience.
Hansteen avoided looking for its source. A moment later there came a
stertorous snore from Mrs. Schuster. At another time it would have been
funny, but not now. She was one of the lucky ones; she was already
peacefully, if not quietly, unconscious. The Commodore refilled his
lungs. It was firing to talk for any length of time.

"If I couldn't offer you some hope," he continued, "I would have said
nothing. But we do have one chance and we have to take it soon. It's not
a very pleasant one, but the alternative is much worse. Miss. Wilkins,
please hand me the sleep tubes." - There was a deathly silence-not even
interrupted by Mrs. Schuster-as the stewardess handed over a small metal
box. Hansteen opened it, and took out a white cylinder the size and
shape of a cigarette.

"You probably know," he continued, "that all space vehicles are
compelled by law to carry these in their medicine chests. They are quite
painless, and will knock you out for ten hours. That may mean all the
difference between life and death-for man's respiration rate is cut by
more than fifty   A Fall of Moondust  125

per cent when hes unconscious. So our air will last twice as long as it
would otherwise. Long enough, we hope, for Port Roris to reach us.

"Now, it's essential for at least one person to remain awake to keep in
touch with the rescue team. And to be on the safe side, we should have
two. One of them must be the Captain; I think that goes without
argument."

"And I suppose the other should be yout' said an all-toofamiliar voice.

"I'm really very sorry for you, Miss. Morley," said Commodore Hansteen,
without the slightest sign of resentmentfor there was no point, now, in
making an issue of a matter that had already been settled. "Just to
remove any possible misconceptions---~' Before anyone quite realized
what had happened, he had pressed the cylinder to his forearm.

"IT hope to see you all-ten hours from now," he said, very slowly but
distinctly, as he walked to the nearest seat. He had barely reached it
when he slumped quietly into oblivion. It's all your show now, Pat told
himself as he got to his feet. For a moment he felt like addressing a
few wen-chosen words to Miss. Morley; then he realized that to do so
would spoil the dignity of the Commodores exit.

"I'm the captain of this vessel," he said in a firm, low voice. "And
from now on, what I say goes."

"Not with me," retorted the indomitable Miss. Morley. "I'm a paying
passenger and I have my rights. I've not the slightest intention of
using one of those things." The blasted woman seemed unsnubbable. Pat
was also compelled to admit that she had guts. He had a brief, nightmare
glimpse of the future that her words suggested. Then hours alone with
Miss. Morley, and no one else to talk to. He glanced at the five trouble
shooters. The nearest to Miss. Morley was the Jamaican civil engineer,
Robert Bryan. He looked ready and willing to move into action, but Pat
still hoped that unpleasantness could be avoided.

"I don't wish to argue about rights," he said, "but if you were to look
at the small print on your tickets, you'd discover that, in an
emergency, I'm in absolute charge here. In any event, this is for your
own good, and your own comfort. I'd msch rather be asleep than awake
while we wait for the rescue team to get here."  126  Arthur C. Clarke

"That goes for me, too," said Professor Jayawardene unexpectedly. "As
the Commodore said, it will conserve the air, so it's our only chance.
Miss. Wilkins, will you give me one of those things?" The calm logic of
this helped to lower the emotional tem. Perature; so did the Professoes
smooth, obviously comfortable slide into unconsciousness. Two down and
eighteen to 90, murmured Pat under his breath.

"Let's waste no more time," he said aloud. "As you can see, these shots
are entirely painless. There's a microjet hypodermic inside each
cylinder, and you won't even feel a pinprick." Sue was already handing
out the innocent-looking little tubes, and several of the passengers had
used them immedi8tely. There went the Schusters (Irving, with a
reluctant and touching tenderness, had pressed the tube against the arm
of his sleeping wife) and the enigmatic Mr. Radley. That left fifteen.
Who would be next? Now Sue had come to Miss. Morley. This is it, thought
Pat. If she was still determined to make a fuss He might have guessed
it.

"I thought I made it quite clear that I don't want one of these things.
Please take it away .9' Robert Bryan began to inch forward, but it was
the sardon. 1c, English voice of David Barrett that did the trick.

"What really worries the good lady, Captain," he said, obviously placing
his barb with relish, "is that you may take advantage of her in her
helpless condition." For a few seconds, Miss. Morley sat speechless with
fury, While her cheeks turned a bright crimson.

"I've never been so insulted in my-" she began.

"Nor have 1, madam," interjected Pat, completing her demoralization. She
looked round the circle of faces-most of them solemn, but several
grinning, even at a time like this--and realized that there was only one
way out. As she slumped in her seat, Pat breathed a vast sigh of re.
lief. After that little episode, the rest should be easy. Then he saw
that Mrs. Williams, whose birthday had been celebrated in such Spartan
style only a few hours before, was staring in a kind of frozen trance at
the cylinder in her hand. The poor woman was obviously terrified, and no
one could blame her. In the next seat, her husband had already col.   A
Fall of Moondust  127 lapsed; it was a little ungallant, Pat thought, to
have gone first and left his wife to fend for herself. Before he could
take any action, Sue had moved forward.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. William , I made a mistake. I gave you an empty one.
Perhaps you'll let me have it back..." 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. Wdliams. 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. Com modore Hansteen had been too much of a
pessimist; the riot squad had not been necessary, after an. I 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
projects, when he had lived in one for weeks on end, and had forgotten
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 XX-and it could
sustain six men for an indefinite period, as long as they were supplied
with power, water, food, and oxygen. The igloo could 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 air line, 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 equalized" signal, then stepped into the hemispherical
main chamber.  128  Arthur C. Clarke

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 modem refinement;
in his day, the only privacy was that given by the curtain across the
toilet.) Overhead, three meters 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 stock-taking. 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 infla~ tion 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 authorize the clearance .99 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 space suits from the time they
left Sekne until they were ferried back to Port Roris. There was a "beep
beep" from the communicator behind   A Fall of Moondust  129

his left ear. He flicked the switch at his belt and acknowledged the
call.

"C.E.E. speaking!" "Message from Selene, sir," said a clear, tiny voice.
"Very urgent-they're in trouble."   Chapter 19

Until now, Pat bad 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, Baidur, Hans Baldur. He had
looked like the typical quiet tourist who never gave any trouble. He was
still quiet, but no longer typical-for he was re!naining 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, Mister Baidur?" 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 Moon-bom 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 besides his own reflection.

"You can't make me take that stuff, and rm 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-ifs 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,
Mister Harding," he answered, welcoming anything that might break this
impasse. 130   A Fall of Moondust  131

-you say you won't permit any injections, Mister Baldur~" continued
Harding, in tones that reminded Pat of his crossemamination of Mrs.
Schuster. (How long agd that seemedl) &,But I can tea that you weren!t
bom on the Moon. No one can min wing through Quarantine-~, how you gel
here without taking the usual shots?" The question obviously left.
"Baldur extremely agitatra "That's no business of Yourk" he snapped.

"Quite true," said Harding pleasantly. "rm only trying to be helpful.,'
He stepped forward and reached out his left hand. 111 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 Baldur's 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 Aills, 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 pinpricks.

"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  132  Arthur C. Clarke

ago. Now it's psychologically impossible for him to accept an injection.
I hope I've not given him a relapse, but thafs the least of his
worries."

"How did he ever get through Quarantine?"

"Oh, there's a special section for people like this. The dootors 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 heavens 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.

"Good-by, 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 be 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 forever.
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. Vell, 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 Irm Battered by
your choice--or did you leave it to luck?"

"Before I answer that question," replied Pat, --rd 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.   A Fall of
Moondust  133

"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
space-suit breathing circuit. It's the passengers Irm worried about."
w1be only thing you can do is to check their respiration, and give them
a blast of oxygen if they seemed 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 carbondioxide poisoning were now beginning to tell heavily upon
him-and said to Mckenzie: "Right, Doe-give me a hand with that space
suit."

"I'm ashamed of myself. rd forgotten all about that."

"And I was worried because some of the other passengers inight 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
twenty-four-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 achmg, the only two men still
conscious aboard the cruiser stood staring at each other across the gray
metal cylinder that held another day of life. Then, simultaneously, each
said: "You go first." They laughed without much humor 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, Re 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 lurv,  134  Arthur C. Clarke

I'lien, like a pipe of peace, he handed the breathing kit over to
Mckenzie. IMOSE 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 centimeters of oxygen have
had so profound an effect?-but whatever the explanation, he felt like a
new man. Now he could face the five--or mor&-hours of waiting 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. Doctor 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."

"Message received. But hold on a minute, several of the news agencies
want to speak to you."

"Sorry," Pat answered. "rve given all the information there is, and I've
twenty unconscious men and women to look after. Selene out." That was
only an excuse, of course, and a feeble one at that; he was not even
sure why he had made it. He felt, in a sudden and uncharacteristic burst
of rancor: Why, a man can't even die in peace nowadaysl Had he known
about that waiting camera, only five kilometers away, his reaction might
have been even stronger.

"You still haven't answered my question, Captain," said Dr. Mckenzie
patiently.

"What question? Oh--that. No, It wasn't luck. The Commodore and I both
thought you'd be the most useful man to have awake. You're a scientist,
you spotted the overheating danger before anyone else did, and you kept
quiet about it when we asked you to." "Vell, III try to live up to your
expectations. I certainly feel more alert than I've done for hours. It
must be the oxygen we're sniffing. Ile big question is: How long will it

"Between the two of us, twelve hours. Plenty of time for the skis to get
here. But we may have to give most of it to the others, if they show
signs of distress. rin afraid it's going to be a very close thing."   A
Fall of Moondust

They were both sitting cross-legged on the floor, just beside the
pilot's position, with the oxygen bottle between them. Every few minutes
they would take turns with the inhaler-but only two breaths at a time. I
never imagined, Pat told himself, that I should ever get involved in the
number-one clich6 of the TV space operas. But it had occurred in real
life too often to be funny any more-especially when it was happening to
you. Both Pat and Mckenzie-or almost certainly one of them-could survive
if they abandoned the other passengers to their fate. Trying to keep
these twenty men and women alive, they might also doom themselves. Thi
situation was one in which logic warred against conscience. But it was
nothing new; certainly it was not peculiar to the age of space. It was
as old as Mankind, for countless times in the past, lost or isolated
groups had faced death through lack of water, food, or warmth. Now it
was oxygen that was in short supply, but the principle was just the
same. Some of those groups had left no survivors; others, a handful who
would spend the rest of their lives in self-justification. What must
George Pollard, late captain of the whaler Essex, have thought as he
walked the streets of Nantucket, with the taint of cannibalism upon his
soul? That was a two-hundredyear-old story of which Pat had never heard;
he lived on a world too busy making its own legends to import those of
Earth. As far as he was concerned, he had already made his choice, and
he knew, without asking, that Mckenzie would agree with him. Neither was
the sort of man who would fight over the last bubble of oxygen in the
tank. But if it did come to a fight "What are you smiling at?" asked
Mckenzie. Pat relaxed. There was something about this burly Austrar Ban
scientist that he found very reassuring. Hansteen gave him the same
impression, but Mckenzie was a much younger man. There were some people
you knew that you could trust, whom you were certain would never let you
down. He had that feeling about Mckenzie. "if you want to know," he
said, putting down the oxygen mask, "I was thinking that I wouldn't have
much of a chance if you decided to keep the bottle for yourself."
Mckenzie looked a little surprised; then he too grinned.

"I thought all you Moon-born were sensitive about tha4" he said.  136
Arthur C. Clarke

"rve never felt that way," Pat answered. "After all, brains are more
important than muscles. I can't help it that I was bred in a gravity
field a sixth of yours. Anyway, how could' you tell I was Moon-born?"
"Vell, it's partly your build. You all have that same tall, slender
physique. And there's your skin color-the U-Vlamps never seem to give
you the same tan as natural sunlight.-

"It's certainly tanned you," retorted Pat with a grin. -At night, you
must be a menace to navigation. Incidentally, how did you get a name
like Mckenzie?" Having had little contact with the racial tensions that
were not yet wholly extinct on Earth, Pat could make such re!narks
without embarrassment-indeed, without even realizing that they might
cause embarrassment.

"My grandfather had it bestowed on him by a missionary when he was
baptized. rin very doubtful if it has any-ahgenetic significance. To the
best of my knowledge, I'm a full-blooded abo."

"Abo?"

"Aboriginal. We were the people occupying Australia before the whites
came along. The subsequent events were somewhat depressing." Pat's
knowledge of terrestrial history was vague; like most residents of the
Moon, he tended to assume that nothing of great importance had ever
happened before 8 November 1967, when the fiffieth anniversary of the
Russian Revolution had been so spectacularly celebrated.

"I suppose there was war?"

"You could hardly call it that. We had spears and boommerangs; they had
guns. Not to mention T.B. and V.D., which were much more effective. It
took us about a hundred and fifty years to get over the impact. Ifs only
in the last century-aince about nineteen forty-that our numbers started
going up again. Now there are about a hundred thousand of us-idmost as
many as when your ancestors came." Mckenzie delivered this information
with an ironic detachment that took any personal sting out of it, but
Pat thought that he had better disclaim responsibility for the misdeeds
of his terrestrial predecessors.

"Don't blame me for what happened on Earth," he said. "Tve never been
there, and I never will-I couldn't face that gravity. But I've looked at
Australia plenty of times through   A Fall of Moondust  137

the telescope. I have some sentimental feeling for the place-my parents
took off from Woomera."

"And my ancestors named it; a woomera's a booster stage for spears."

"Are any of your people," asked Pat, choosing his words with care,
"still living in primitive conditions? I've heard that's still true, in
some parts of Asia."

"The old tribal life's gone. It went very quickly, when the African
nations in the U.N. started bullying Australia. Often quite unfairly, I
might add-for I'm an Australian first, and an aboriginal second., But I
must admit that my white countrymen were often pretty stupid; they must
have been, to think that we were stupidl Why, 'way into the last century
some of them still thought we were Stone Age savages. Our technology was
Stone Age, all right-but we werent." There seemed nothing incongruous to
Pat about this discussion, beneath the surface of the Moon, of a way of
life so distant both in space and time. He and Mckenzie would have to
entertain each other, keep an eye on their twenty unconscious
companions, and fight off sleep, for at least five more hours. Ibis was
as good a way as any of doing it.

"If your people weren't in the Stone Age, Doc-and just for the sake of
argument, IT grant that you aren't-how did the whites get that idear,
"Sheer stupidity, with the help of a preconceived bias. It's an easy
assumption that if a man can't count, write, or speak good English, he
must be unintelligent. I can give you a perfect example from my own
family. My grandfather-the first Mckenzie-Iived to see the year two
thousand, but he never learned to count beyond ten. And his description
of a total eclipse of the Moon was. "Kerosene lamp bilong Jesus Christ
he bugger-up finish altogether." "Now, I can write down the differential
equations of the Moon's orbital motion, but I don't claim to be brighter
than Grandfather. If we'd been switched in time, he might have been the
better physicist. Our opportunities were differentthat's all.
Grandfather never had occasion to learn to count; and I never had to
raise a family in the desert-which was a highly skilled, full-time job."

"Perhaps," said Pat thoughtfully, "we could do with some of your
grandfather's skills here. For that's what we're trying to do
now-survive in a desert."

"I suppose you could put it that way, though I don!t think  138  Arthur
C. Clarke

that boomerang and fire stick would be much use to us. Maybe we could
use some magic-but I'm afraid I don't know any, and I doubt if the
tribal gods could make it from Arnhem Land."

"Do you ever feel sorry," asked Pat, "about the breakup of your people's
way of life?"

"How could I? I scarcely knew it. I was born in Brisbane, and had
learned to run an electronic computer before I ever saw a corroboree-~'
"A what?" "Tribal religious dance--4md half the participants In that
were taking degrees in cultural anthropology. I've no romantic illusions
about the simple life and the noble savage. My ancestors were fine
people, and I'm not ashamed of them, but geography had trapped them in
adead end. After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy
left for a civilization. In the long run, it was a good thing that the
white settlers arrived, despite their charming habit of selling us
poisoned flour when they wanted our land." '01'hey did that?" 'rhey
certainly did. But why are you surprised? That was a good hundred years
before Belsen." Pat thought this over for a few minutes. Then he looked
at his watch and said, with a distinct expression of relief: "Time I
reported to Base again. Let's have a quick look at the passengers
first."   Chqter 20

There was no time now, Lawrence realized, to worry about inflatable
igloos and the other refinements of gracious living in the Sea of
Thirst. All that mattered was getting those air Pipes down into the
cruiser. The engineers and technicians would just have to sweat it out
in the suits until the job was finished. Their ordeal would not last for
long-- If they could not manage inside five or six hours, they cli turn
round and go home again, and leave Selene to the world after which she
was named. In the workshops of Port Roris, unsung and unrecorded
miracles of improvisation were now being achieved. A complete
air-conditioning plant, with its liquid-oxygen tanks, hu. midity and
carbon-dioxide absorbers, temperature and pressure regulators, had to be
dismantled and loaded on to a sledge. So did a small drilling rig,
hurled by shuttle rocket from the Geophysics Division at Clavius. So did
the specially designed plumbm& which now had to work at the first
attempt, for there would be no opportunity for modifications. Lawrence
did not attempt to drive his men; he knew it was unnecessary. He kept in
the background, checking the flow of equipment from stores and workshop
out to the skis, and hying to think of every snag that could possibly
arise. What tools would be needed? Were there enough spares? Was the
raft being loaded on to the skis last, so that it could be offloaded
first? Would it be safe to pump oxygen into Selene before connecting up
the exhaust line? These, and a hundred other details-some trivial, some
vital-pamed through his mind. Several times he called Pat to ask for
technical information, such as the internal pressure and temperature,
whether the cabin relief valve had blown off yet (it hadn't-, probably
it was jammed with dust), and advice on the best 139  146  Arthur C.
Clarke

spots to drill through the roof. And each time Pat answered with
increasing slowness and difficulty. Despite all attempts to make contact
with hini, Lawrence resolutely refused to speak to the newsmen now
swarming round Port Roris and jammin half the sound and vision circuits
between Earth and Moon. He had issued one brief statement explaining the
position and what he intended doing about it; the rest was up to the
administrative people- It was their job to protect him so that he could
get on with his work undisturbed; he had made that quite clear to the
Tourist Commissioner, and had hung up before Davis could argue with
him." He had no time, of course, even to glance at the TV COVERAGE
himself, though he had heard that Doctor Lawson was rapidly establishing
a reputation as a somewhat prickly personality. That, he presumed, was
the work of the Interplanet News man into whose hands he had dumped the
astronomer; the fellow should be feeling quite happy about it.

"Me fellow was feeling nothing of the sort. High on the ramparts of the
Mountains of Inaccessibility, whose title he had so convincingly
refuted, Maurice Spenser was heading swiftly toward that ulcer he had
avoided all his working life. He had spent a hundred thousand stollars
to get Auriga here--4md now it looked as if there would be no story
after all. it would all be over before the skis could arrive; the
suspense-packed, breath-taking rescue operation that would keep billions
glued to their screens was never going to materialize. Few people could
have resisted watching twenty-two men and women snatched from death; but
no one would want to see an exhumation. That was Spensees cold-blooded
analysis of the situation from the newscastees viewpoint, but as a human
being he was equally unhappy. It was a terrible thing to sit here on the
mountain, only five kilometers away from unpending tragedy, yet able to
do absolutely nothing to avert it. He felt almost ashamed of every
breath he took, knowing that those people down there were suffocating.
Tune and again he had wondered if there was anything that Auriga could
do to help (the news value of this did not, of course, escape him), but
now he was sure that she could only be a spectator. That implacable Sea
ruled out all possibility of aid.   A Fall of Moondust He had covered
disasters before, but this time he uncommonly like a ghoul.  sa he felt

It was very peaceful now, aboard Selene--eo peaceful that one had to
fight against sleep. How pleasant it would be, thought Pat, if he could
join the others, dreaming happily all around him. He envied them, and
sometimes felt jealous of them. Then he would take a few draughts from
the dwindling store of oxygen, and reality would close in upon hun as he
recognized his peril. A single man could never have remained awake, or
kept an eye on twenty unconscious men and women, feeding them oxygen
whenever they showed signs of respiratory distress. He and Mckenzie had
acted as mutual watchdogs; several tunes each had dragged the other back
from the verge of sleep. There would have been no difficulty had them
been plenty of oxygen, but that one bottle was becoming rapidly
exhausted. It was maddening to know that there were still many kilograms
of liquid oxygen in the cruisees main tanks, but there was no way in
which they could use it. The automatic system was metering it through
the evaporators and into the cabin, where it was at once contaminated by
the DOW almost unbreathable atmosphere. Pat had never known time to move
so slowly. ft seemed quite incredible that only four hours bad passed
since he and Mckenzie had been left to guard their sleeping companion&
He could have sworn that they had been here for days, talking quietly
together, calling Port Roris every fifteen minutes, checking pulses and
respiration, and doling out oxygen With a miserly hand. But nothing
lasts forever. Over the radio, from the world which neither man really
believed he would ever see came the news they had been waiting for.

"We're on the way," said the weary but determined voice of Chief
Engineer Lawrence. "You only have to hang on for another hour-well be on
top of you by then. How are you feeling?"

"Very fired," said Pat slowly. "But we can make it."

"And the passengers?"

"Just the same."

"Right-1711 call you every ten minutes. Leave your receiver on, volume
high. This is Med Division's idea-they doift want to risk your falling
asleep."   Arthur C. Clarke a of brass thundered across the face of the
Mom, of thft,~_-, ed on past the Earth and out into the far reaches of
the solar system. Hector Berlioz could never have dreamed that two
centuries after he had composed it, the soul-stirring rhythm of his
-Rakoczy Marcy would bring hope and strength to man fighting for their
lives on another world. As the waste reverberated round the cabin, Pat
looked at Dr. Mckenzie with a wan smil& "It may be old-fashioned," he
said, "but it's working?, The blood was pounding in his veins, his foot
was tapping with the bed of the music. Out of the lunar sky, flashing
down from space, had come the tramp of marching armies, the thunder of
cavalry across a thousand battlefields, the call of bugles that had once
summoned nations to meet their destiny. All gone, long ago, and that was
well for the world. But they had left behind them much that was fine and
noble---examples of heroism and self-sacrifice, proofs that men could
still hold on when their bodies should have passed the limits of
-physical endurance. As his lungs labored In the stagnant air, Pat
Harris knew that he had need of such inspiration from the past, if he
was to survive the endless hour that lay ahead.

Aboard the tiny, cluttered deck of Duster One, Chief Engi. neer Lawrence
heard the same music, and reacted in the same fashion. Nis little Beet
was indeed going into battle, against the enemy that Man would face to
the end of time. As he spread across the Universe from planet to planet
and sun to sun, the forces of Nature would be arrayed against him in
ever new and unexpected ways. Even Earth , after all these aeons, still
bad many traps for the unwary, and on a world that men had known for
only a lifetime, death lurked In a thousand innocent disguises. Whether
or not the Sea of Thirst was robbed of its prey, Lawrence was sure of
one thing-tomorrow there would be a fresh challenge. I Each SID was
towing a single sledge, piled high with equipment which looked heavier
and more impressive than it really was; most of the load was merely the
empty drums upon which the raft would Boat. Everything not absolutely
essential had been left behind. As soon as Duster One had dumped its
cargo, Lawrence would send it straight back to Port Roris for the next
load. Then he would be able to maintain a shuttle service between the
site and Base, so that if he wanted   A Fall of Moondust  143

anything quickly he would never have to wait more than an hour for it.
This, of course, was taking the optimistic view; by the time he got to
Selene, there might be no hurry at A As the Port buildings dropped
swiffly below dw sky line, Lawrence ran through the procedure with his
men. He had intended to do a full-dress rehearsal before sailing, but
that was another plan that had had to be abandoned through lack of time.
The first count-down would be the only one that mattered.

"Jones, Sikorsky, Coleman, Matsui, when we arrive at the marker, you're
to unload the drum and lay them out in the right pattern. As soon as
thalft done, Bruce and Hodges will fix the cross-members. Be very
careful not to drop any of the nuts and bolts, and keep all your tools
tied to you. If you accidentally fall off, don't panic; you can only
sink a few centimeters. I know.

"Sikorsky, Jones, you give a hand with the flooring as soon as the raft
framework's fixed. Coleman, Matsui, immediately theres enough working
space, start laying out the air pipes and the plumbing. Greenwood,
Renaldl you're in charge of the drming operation-P So it went on, point
by point. The greatest danger, Lawrence knew was that his men would get
in each other's way as they worked in this confined space. A single
trifling accident, and the whole effort would be wasted. One of
Lawrences private fears, which had been worrying him ever since they
left Port Roris, was that some vital tool had been left behind. And
there was an even worse nightmare-that the twenty-two men and women in
Selene might die within minutes of rescue because the only wrench that
could make the final connection had been dropped overboard.

On the Mountains of Inaccessilffity, Maurice Spenser was staring through
his binoculars and listening to the radio voices calling across the Sea
of Thirst. Every ten minutes Lawrence would speak to Selene, and each
time the pause before the reply would be a little longer. But Harris and
Mckenzie were still clinging to consciousness, thanks to sheer will
power and, presumably, the musical encouragement they were getting from,
Clavius City.

"Whafs that psychologist disc jockey pumping into them now?" asked
Spenser. On the other side of the control cibin,  144  Arthur C. Ckirke

the sws Radio Officer turned up the volume, and the Valkyries. rode
above the Mountains of Inaccessibility.

"I donl believe," grumbled Captain Anson, "that theyve played anything
later than the nineteenth century .1, "Oh yea they have," corrected
Jules Braques, as he made some infinitesimal adjustment to h1s camera.
-Ibey did Khachaturaes. "Sabre Dance just now. That!s only a hundred
years old.'s "Tune for Duster One to call again," said the Radio Officer
The cabin became instantly silent. Right on the second, the dust-ski
signal came in. Tle expedition was now so close that Auriga could
receive it directly, without benefit of the relay from Lagrange.

"Lawrence calling Selene. Well be over you in ten minutes. Are you
O.K.?" Again that agonizing pause; this time it lasted almost five
seconds. Then: "Selene answering No change here.- That was all..Pat
Harris was not wasting his remaining breath.

"Ten minutes," said Spenser. "They should be in sight now. Anything on
the screen?" Not yet," answered Jules, zooming out to the horizon and
panning slowly along its empty arc. There was nothing above it but the
black night of space. The Moon, thought Jules, certainly presented some
headaches to the cameraman. Everything was soot or white. wash; there
were no nice, soft half tones. And, of course, there was that eternal
dilemma of the stars, though that was an aesthetic problem, rather than
a technical one. no public expected to see stars in the lunar sky even
during the daytime-, because they were there. But the fact was that the
human eye could not normally see them; during the day, the eye was so
desensitized by the glare that the sky appeared an empty, absolute
black. If you wanted to see the. stars, you had to look for them through
blinkers that cut off all other light; then your pupils would slowly
expand, and one by one the stars would come out until they filled the
field of view. But as soon as you looked at anything else--phut, out
they went The human eye could look at the daylight stars, or the
daylight landscape; it could never see both at Once. But the TV camera
could, if desued, and some directors   A Fall of Moondu9t:  145

preferred ft to do so. Others argued that this falsified reality. It was
one of those problems that had no correct answer. Jules sided with the
realists, and kept the star gate circuit switched off unless the studio
asked for it At any moment, he would have some action for Earth. Already
the news networks had taken flashes-general views of the mountains, slow
pans across the Sea, close-ups of that lonely marker sticking through
the dust. But before long, and perhaps for hours on end, his camera
might well be the eyes of several billion people. This feature was
either going to be a bust, or the biggest story of the year. He fingered
the talisman in his pocket. Wes Braques, Member of the Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers, would have been displeased had anyone
accused him of carrying a lucky charm. on the other hand, he would have
been very hard put to explain why he never brought out his little toy
until the story he was covering was safely on the air.

"Here they arel" yelled Spenser, his voice revealing the strain under
which he had been laboring. He lowered his binoculars and glanced at the
camem.

"You9re too far off to the rightl" Jules was already panning. On the
monitor screen, the geometrical smoothness of the far horizon had been
broken at last; two tiny, twinkling stars had appeared on that perfect
arc dividing Sea and space. The dust-skis were coming up over the face
of the Moon. Even with the longest focus of the zoom lens, they looked
small and distant. That was the way Jules . wanted it; he was anxious to
give the impression of loneliness, emptiness. He shot a quick glance at
the ship's main screen, now tuned to the Interplanet channel. Yes, they
were carrying him. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small diary,
and laid it on top of the camera. He lifted the cover, which locked into
position just short of the vertical-and immediately became alive with
color and movement. At the same time a faint gnat-sized voice started to
tell him that this was a special program of the Interplanet News
Servicep Channel one Oh Seven-and We Will Now Be Taking You. Over to the
Moon. On the tiny screen was the picture he was seeing directly on his
monitor. No-not quite the same picture. This was the one he had captured
two and a half seconds ago; he was  146  Arthur C. Ckirke

looking that far Into the past. In those two and a half million
microseconds--to change to the time scale of the electronic
engineer--this scene had undergone many adventures and transformations.
From his camera it had been piped to Auriga's transmitter, and beamed
straight up to Lagrange, fifty thousand kilometers overhead. There it
had been snatched out of space, boosted a few hundred times, and sped
Earthward to be caught by one or another of the satellite relays. Then
down through the ionosphere--that last hundred kilometers the hardest of
aff-to the Interplanet Building, where its adventures really began, as
it joined the ceaseless flood of sounds and sights and electrical
impulses which informed and amused a substantial fraction of the human
race. And here it was again, after passing through the hands of program
directors and special-effects departments and engineering
assistants-right back where it started, broadcast over the whole of
Earthside from the high-power transmitter on Lagrange H, and over the
whole of Farside from Lagrange 1. To span the single hand's breadth from
Jules's TV camera to his pocket-diary receiver, that image had traveled
three quarters of a minion kilometers. He wondered if it was worth the
trouble. Men had been wondering that ever since television was invented.
  Chapter 21 as  Mason be

Lawrence spotted Auriga while be was still fifteen kilometers away; he
could scarcely have failed to do so, for she was a c4Dnspicuous object,
as the sunlight glistened from her plastic and metal What the devil's
that? he asked himself, and answered the question at once. It was
obviously a ship, and he remembered hearing vague rumors that some news
network had chartered a fight to the mountains. That was not his
business, though at one time he himself had looked into the question of
landing equipment there, to out out this tedious haul across the Sea.
Unfortunately, the plan wouldn't work. There was no safe landing point
within five hundred meters of Sea level; the ledge that had been so
convenient for Spenser was at too great an altitude to be of use. The
Chief Engineer was not sure that he Eked the idea of having his every
move watched by long-focus lenses up in the hills--nort that there was
anything he could do about it. He had already vetoed an attempt to put a
camera on his skito the enormous relief, though Lawrence did not know
it, of Interplanet News, and the extreme frustration of the other
services. Then he realized Ihat it might well be useful having a ship
only a few kilometers away. It would provide an additional information
channel, and perhaps they. could utilize its services in some other way.
It might even provide hospitality until the igloos could be ferried out.
Where was the marker? Surely it should be in sight by nowl For an
uncomfortable moment Lawrence thought that It had fallen down and
disappeared into the dust. That would not stop them finding Selene, of
course, but it might delay them five or ten minutes at a time when every
second was vital. He breathed a sigh of relief; he had overlooked the
thin 147  148  Arthur C. Clarke shaft against the blazing background of
the mountains. 09 pilot had already spotted their goal and had changed
course slightly to head toward it. . The skis coasted to a halten either
side of the marker, and at once erupted into, activity. Eight
space-suited figures started unshipping roped bundles and large
cylindrical drums at a great speed, according to the prearranged plan.
Swiftly, the raft began to take shape as its slotted metal framework was
bolted into position round the drums, and the light Fiberglas flooring
was laid across it. No construction job in the whole history of the Moon
had ever been carried out in such a blaze of publicity, thanks to the
watchful eye in the mountains. But once they had started work, the eight
men on the skis were totally unconscious of the millions looking over
their shoulders. All that mattered to them now was getting that raft in
position, and fixing the jigs which would guide the hollow, life-bearing
drills down to their target. Every five minutes, or less, Lawrence spoke
to Selene, keeping Pat and Mckenzie informed of progress. The fact that
he was also informing the anxiously waiting world scarcely crossed his
mind. At last, in an incredible twenty minutes, the drill was ready, Its
first five-meter section poised like a harpoon ready to plunge into the
Sea. But this harpoon was designed to bring life, not death.

"We're coming down," said Lawrence. "Me first section!s much longer."

"You'd better hurry," whispered Pat. "I can!t hold out much longer."  -i
He seemed to be moving In a fog; he could not remember a time when it
was not there. Apart from the dull ache in his lungs, he was not really
uncomfortable-merely incredibly, unbelievably tired. He was now no more
than a robot, going about a task whose meaning he had long ago
forgotten, if indeed he had ever known it. There was a wrench in his
hand; he had taken it out of the tool kit hours ago, knowing that it
would be needed. Perhaps it would remind him of what he had to do when
the time came. From a great distance, it seemed, he heard a snatch of
conversation that was obviously not intended for him. Someone had
forgotten to switch channels.

"We should have fixed it so that the drill could be un-  A Fall of
Moondust  149 screwed from this end. Suppose hes too weak to do W* "We
had to take the risk; the extra fittings would have delayed us at least
an hour. Give me that--P 7ben the circuit went dead; but Pat had heard
enough to make him angry--or as angry as a man could be, in his
half-stupefied condition. Hed show them-he and his good pal Doctor
Mao-Mac what? He could no longer remember the name. He turned slowly
round in his swiveling sent and looked back along the Goigotha-like
shambles of the cabin. For a moment he could not find the physicist
among the other tumbled bodies; then he saw that he was kneeling beside
Mrs. William , whose dates of birth and death now looked like being very
close together. Mckenzie was holding the oxygen mask over her face,
quite unaware of the fact that the telltale hiss of gas from the
cylinder had ceased, and the gauge had long ago reached zero.

"We're almost there," said the radio. "You should hear us bit at any
minute." So soon? thought Pat. But, of course, a heavy tube would slice
down through the dust almost as quickly as it could be lowered. He
thought he was very clever to deduce this. Bangl Something had hit the
roof. But where?

"I can hear you," he whispered. "You've reached us."

"We know," answered the voice. "We can feel the contract. But you have
to do the rest. Can you tell where the drilrs touching? Is it in a clear
section of the roof, or is it over the wiring? Well raise and lower it
several times, to help you locate it." Pat felt rather aggrieved at
this. It seemed terribly unfair that he should have to decide such a
complicated matter. Knock, knock went the drill against the roof. He
couldn't for the life of him (why did that phrase seem so appropriate?)
locate the exact position of the sound. Well, they had nothing to lose.

"Go ahead," he murmured. "You're in the clean" He had to repeat it twice
before they understood his words. Instantly-they were quick off the pad
up there-the drill started whirring against the outer hull. He could
hear the sound very distinctly, more beautiful than any music. The bit
was through the first obstacle in less than a minute. He heard it race,
then stop as the motor was cul Then the  ISO  Arthur C. Ckirke

operator lowered it the few centimeters to the inner hull. and started
it spinning again. The sound was much louder now, andcould be pinpointed
exactly. It came, Pat was mildly disconcerted to note, from very close
to the main cable conduit, along the center of the roof. If it went
through that ... Slowly and unsteadily he got to his feet and walked
over to the source of the sound. He had just reached it when there was a
shower of dust from the ceiling, a sudden spitting of electricity-and
the main lights went out. Luckily, the emergency lighting remained on.
It took Pat's eyes several seconds to adapt to the dim red glow. Then he
saw that a metal tube was protruding through the roof. It moved slowly
downward until it had traveled half a meter Into the cabin; and there it
stopped. The radio was talking in the background, saying something that
he knew was very important. He tried to make sense of it as he fitted
the wrench around the bit head, and tightened the screw adjustment.

"Dwet undo the bit until we tell you," said that remote voice. "We had
no time to fit a nonreturn valve-the pipe's open to vacuum at this end.
We'll tell you as won as were ready. I repeat, don't remove the bit
until we say so." Pat wished the man would stop bothering him; he knew
exactly what to do. If he leaned with all his might on the handle of the
wrench--so-the drill head would come off, and he!d be able to breathe
gain. Why wasn't it moving? He tried once more.

"My God," said the radio. "Stop thatl We!re not readyl You'll lose all
your airl" Just a minute, thought Pat, ignoring the distraction. lhews
something wrong here. A screw can turn this wayor that way. Suppose I'm
tightening it up, when I should be doing the opposite? This was horribly
complicated. He looked at his right band, then his left; neither seemed
to help. (Nor did that silly man shouting on the radio.) Well, he could
try the other way and see if that was better. With great dignity, he
performed a complete circuit of the tube, keeping one arm wrapped around
it. As he fell on the wrench from the other side, he grabbed it with
both hands to keep himself from collapsing, For a moment he rested
against it, head bowed.   A Fall of Moondust  151

"Up periscope," he mumbled. Now what on Earth did that mean? He had no
idea, but he had heard it somewhere and it seemed appropriate. He was
stiff puzzling over the matter when the drill head started to unscrew
beneath his weight, very easily and smoothly. Fifteen meters above,
Chief Engineer Lawrence and his assistants stood for a moment almost
paralyzed with horror. This was something that no one could ever have
imagined; they had thought of a hundred other accidents, but not this.

"Coleman-Matsuil" snapped Lawrence. "Connect up that oxygen line, for
God's sakel" Even as he shouted at them he knew that it would be too
late. There were two connections still to be made before the oxygen
circuit was closed. And, of course, they were screw threads, not
quick-release couplings. Just one of those little points that normally
wouldn't matter in a thousand years, but now made all the difference
between life and death. Like Samson at the miff, Pat trudged round and
round the pipe, pushing the handle of the wrench before him. It offered
no opposition, even in his present feeble state. By now the bit had
unscrewed more than two centimeters; surely it would fall off in a few
more seconds. Ah-almost there. He could hear a faint hissing, that grew
steadily as the bit unwound. That would be oxygen rushing into the
cabin, of course. In a few seconds, he would be able to breathe again,
and all his troubles would be over. The hiss had deepened to an ominous
whistling, and for the first time Pat began to wonder if he was doing
precisely the right thing. He stopped, looked thoughtfully at the
wrench, and scratched his head. His slow mental processes could find no
fault with his action; if the radio had given him orders then, he might
have obeyed, but it had abandoned the attempt. Well, back to work. (Tt
was years since he'd had a hangover like this.) He started to push on
the wrench once more -and fell flat on his face as the drill came loose.
In the same instant, the cabin reverberated with a screaming roar, and a
gale started all the loose papers fluttering like autumn leaves. A mist
of condensation formed as the air, chilled by its sudden expansion,
dumped its moisture in a thick fog. When Pat turned over on his back,
conscious at  152  Arthur C. Clarke

last of what bad happened, he was almost blinded by the mist around him.
That scream meant only one thing to a trained spaceman, and his
automatic reactions had taken over now. He must find some flat object
that could be slid over the hole; anything would do, if it was fairly
strong. He looked wildly around him in the crimson fog, which was
already thinning as it was sucked into space. The noise was deafening;
it seemed incredible that so small a pipe could make such a scream.
Staggering over his unconscious companions, clawing his way from seat to
seat, he had almost abandoned hope when he saw the answer to his prayer
There lay a thick volume, open face downward on the floor where it had
been dropped. Not the right way to treat books, he thought, but he was
glad that someone had been careless. He might never have seen it
otherwise. When he reached the shrieking orifice that was sucking the
life out of the cruiser, the book was literally torn from his hands and
flattened against the end of the pipe. The sound died instantly, as did
the gale. For a moment Pat stood swaying like a drunken man; then he
quickly folded at the knees and pitched to the floor.

  Chqter 22

DO

The really unforgettable moments of TV are those which no one expects,
and for which neither cameras nor commentators are prepared. For the
last thirty minutes, the raft had been the site of feverish but
controlled activity-then, without warning, it had erupted. Impossible
though that was, it seemed as if a geyser had spouted from the Sea of
Thirst. Automatically, Jules tracked that ascending column of mist as it
drove toward the stars (they were visible now; the director had asked
for them). As it rose, it expanded like some strange, attenuated plant
--- or Eke a thinner, feebler version of the mushroom cloud that had
terrorized two generations of mankind. It lasted only for a few seconds,
but in that time it held unknown millions frozen in front of their
screens, wondering how a waterspout could possibly have reared itself
from this and sea. Then it collapsed and died, still in the same uncanny
silence in which it had been born. To the men on the raft that geyser of
moisture-laden air was equally silent, but they felt its vibration as
they struggled to get the last coupling into place. They would have
managed, sooner or later, even if Pat had not cut off the flow, for the
forces involved were quite trivial. But their "latee, might have been
too late. Perhaps, indeed, it already was.. ..

"Calling Selenel Calling Selenel" shouted Lawrence. "Can you hear met'
There was no reply. The cruisees transmitter was not operating; he could
not even hear the sounds her mike should be picking up inside the cabin.

"Connections ready, sir," said Coleman. "Shall I turn on the oxygen
generator?" It won!t do any good, thought Lawrence, if Harris has mana
ad to screw that damned bit back into place. 1. can 153  154  Arthur C.
Clarke owy hope hes merely stuffed something Into the end Of the tube,
and that we can blow it out.

"O.K." he said. "Let her go-all the pressure You Can W." With a sudden
bang, the battered copy of The Orange and the Apple was blasted away
from the pipe to which it had been vacuum-clamped. Out of the open
orifice gushed an inverted fountain of gas, so cold that its outline was
visible in ghostly swirls of condensing water vapor. For sewral minutes
the oxygen geyser roared without producing any effect. Then Pat Harris
slowly stirred, tried to get up, and was knocked back to the ground by
the concentrated Jet. it was not a particularly powerful jet, but it was
stronger than he was in his present state. He lay with the icy blast
playing across his face, enjoying fts refreshing coolness almost as much
as its breathability. In a few seconds he was completely alert-though he
had a splitting headache--and aware of all that had happened in the last
half-hour. He nearly fainted again when he remembered unscrewing the
bit, and fighting that gusher of e~caping air. But this was no time to
worry about past mistakes; all that mattered now was that he was
alive-and with any luck would stay so. He picked up the
stiff-unconscious Mckenzie as though he were a limp doff, and laid him
beneath the oxygen blast. Its force was much weaker now, as the pressure
inside the cniiser rose back to normal; in a few more minutes it would
be only a gentle zephyr-1be sdentist revived ahnost at once, and looked
vaguely round him. "Vhere am I?" he said, not very originally. "Oh.-they
got through to us. Thank God I can breathe again. What's hal>pened to
the lights?" ',Don't worry about that-I'll soon fix them. We must get
everyone under this jet as quickly as we can, and flush some oxygen into
their lungs. Can you give artificial respiration "I've never tried."

"It's very simple. Wait until I -find the medicine chest" When Pat had
collected the resuscitator, he demonstrated on the nearest subject, who
happened to be Irving Schuster.

"Push the tongue out of the way and slip the tube down the throat. Now
squeeze this bulb--slowly. Keep up a natural breathing rhythm. Got the
ideat' "Yes, but how long shall I do it?"   .  A Fall of Moondust155

"Tive or six deep breaths should be enough, rd gues& We're not trying to
revive them, after all-we just want to get the stale air out of their
lungs. You take the front half of the cabin; I'll do the rear."

"But there's only one resuscitator." Pat grinned, without much humor.

"It's not necessary," he answered, bending over his next patient.

"Oh," said Mckenzie. -rd forgotten that." It was hardly chance that Pat
had headed straight to Sue, and was now blowing into her lips in the
ancient-and highly effective-mouth-to-mouth method. But to do him
justice, he wasted no time on her when he found that she was breathing
normally. He was just starting on his third subject when the radio gave
another despairing call.

"Hello, Selene, is there anyone there?" Pat took a few seconds off to
grab the mike.

"Harris calling. We're O.K. We're applying artificial respiration to the
passengers. No time to say more-well call you later. I'll remain on
receive. Tell us what's happening."

"Tbank God you're O.K.-we'd given you up. You gave us a bell of a fright
when you unscrewed that drill." Listening to the Chief Engineer's voice
while he blew into the peacefully sleeping Mr. Radley, Pat had no wish
to be reminded of that incident. He knew that, whatever happened, he
would never live it down. Yet it had probably been for the best; most of
the bad air had been siphoned out of Selene in that hectic minute or so
of decompression. It might even have lasted longer than that, for it
would have taken two or three minutes for a cabin of this size to lose
much of its ai4 through a tube only four centimeters in diameter.

"Now listen," continued Lawrence, "because you've, been overheating
badly, we're letting you have your oxygen just as cold as we think it's
safe. Call us back if it gets too chilly, or too dry. In five or ten
minutes well be sinking the second pipe to you, so that we'll have a
complete circuit and can take over your entire air-conditioning load.
We'll aim this pipe for the rear of the cabin, just as soon as we've
towed the raft a few meters. We're moving now. Call you back in a
minute." Pat and the Doctor did not relax until they bad pumped the foul
air firom the lungs of all their unconscious compan 156  Arthur C.
Ckirke fora. 7U% very tired, yet feeling the calm joy of men who we some
great ordeal approach its triumphant end, they slumped to the floor and
waited for the second drill to come through the roof. Ten minutes later,
they heard it bang against the outer hull, just forward of the air lock.
When Lawrence called to check its position, Pat confirmed that this time
it was clear of obstructions. "And don't worry," he added.

"I won't touch that drill until you tell me." It was now so cold that he
and Mckenzie had put on their outer clothing once more, and had draped
blankets over the sleeping passengers. But Pat did not call a halt; as
long as they were not in actual distress, the colder the better. They
were driving back the deadly heat that had almost cooked them-and, even
more important, their own air purifiers would probably start working
again, now that the temperature had dropped so drastically. When that
second pipe came through the roof, they would be doubly safeguarded. The
men on the raft could keep them supplied with air indefinitely, and they
would also have several hours-perhaps a day's-reserve of their own. They
might 30 have a long wait here beneath the dust, but the suspense was
over. Unless, of course, the Moon arranged some fresh surprise&

"Well, Mr. Spenser," said Captain Anson, "looks as if you've got your
story." Spenser felt almost as exhausted, after the strain of the last
hour, as any of the men out on the raft, two kilometers below him. He
could see them there on the monitor, on medium close-up. They were
obviously relaxing-as wen as men could relax when they were wearing
space suits. I Five of them, indeed, appeared to be trying to get some
sleep, and were tackling the problem in a startling but sensible manner.
They were lying beside the raft, half submerged in the dust, rather like
floating rubber doffs. It had not occurred to Spenser that a space suit
was much too buoyant to sink in this stuff. By getting off the raft, the
five technicians were not only providing themselves with an incomparably
luxurious couch; they were leaving a greatly enlarged working space for
their companions. The three remaining members of the team were moving
slowly around, adjusting and checking equipment--especiaffy   A Fall of
Moondust  157

the rectangular bulk of the air purifier and the big lox spheres coupled
to it. At maximum optical and electronic zoom, the camera could get
within ten meters of all this gear-almost close enough to read the
gauges. Even at medium magnification, it was easy to spot the two pipes
going over the side and leading down to the invisible Selene. This
relaxed and peaceful scene made a startling contrast with that of an
hour ago. But there was nothing more to be done here until the next
batch of equipment arrived. Both of the skis had gone back to Port
Roris; that was where all the activity would now be taking place, as the
engineering staff tested and assembled the gear which, they hoped, would
enable them to reach Selene. It would be another day at least before
that was ready. Meanwhile, barring accidents, the Sea of Thirst, would
continue to bask undisturbed in the morning sun, and the camera would
have no new scenes to throw across space. From one and a half
light-seoonds away, the voice of the program director back on Earth
spoke inside Auriga's control cabin.

"Nice work, Maurice, Jules. Wet keep taping the picture in case anything
breaks at your end, but we don't expect to carry it live until the oh
six hundred news spot."

"How's it holding up?" . I'Supernova rating. And there's a new
angle-every crackpot inventor who ever tried to patent a new paper clip
is crawling out of the woodwork with ideas. We're rounding up a batch of
them at six fifteen. It should be good fun."

"Who knows-perhaps one of them may have something." "Maybe, but I doubt
it. The sensible ones won!t come near our program when they see the
treatment the others are getting."

"Why-what are you doing to them?"

"Their ideas are being analyzed by your scientist friend Doctor Lawsom
We've had a dummy run with him; he skins them alive."

"Not my friend," protested Spenser. "I've only met him twice. The first
time I got ten words out of him; the second time, he fell asleep on me."
"Well, he's developed since then, believe it or not. Youll see him
in-oh, forty-five minutes."

"I can wait. Anyway, Im only interested in what Lawrence  158  Arthur
C. Clarke

Plans to do. Has he made a statement? You should be able to get at him,
now the pressure's off."

"He's still furiously busy and won't talk. We don't think the
Engineering Department has made up its mind yet, anyhow. Ibey're testing
all sorts of gadgets at Port Roris, and ferrying in equipment from all
over the Moon. We'll keep you in touch if we learn anything new." It was
a paradoxical fact, which Spencer took completely for granted, that when
you were covering a story like this you often had no idea of the big
picture. Even when you were in the center of things, as he was now. He
had started the ball rolling, but now he was no longer in control. It
was true that he and Jules were-providing the most important video
coverage~--or would be, when the action shifted back here-but the
pattetn was being shaped at the news centers on Earth and in Clavius
City. He almost wished he could leave Jules and hurry back to
headquarters. That was impossible, of course, and even if he did so, he
would soon regret it. For this was not only the biggest scoop of his
career; it was, he suspected, the last time he would ever be able to
cover a story out in the field. By his own success, he would have doomed
himself irrevocably to an office chair --or, at best, a comfortable
little viewing booth behind the banked monitor screens at Clavis
Central.  Chapter 23

It was still very quiet aboard Selene, but the quietness was now that of
sleep, not of death. Before long, all these people would be waking, to
greet a day few of them could really have expected to see. Pat Harris
was standing somewhat precariously on the back of a seat, mending the
break in the overhead lighting circuit. It was fortunate that the drill
had not been five millimeters to the left; then it would have taken out
the radio as well, and the job would have been much worse. I-rhrow in
number-three circuit break, Doc," he called, winding up his insulating
tape. "We should be in business DOW. The main lights came on, blindingly
brilliant after the crimson gloom. At the same time, there was a sudden,
explosive sound, so unexpected and alarming that it shocked Pat off his
unstable perch. Before he reached the floor, he identified it. It was a
sneeze. The passengers were starting to waken, and he had, perhaps,
slightly overdone the refrigeration, for the cabin was now extremely
cold. He wondered who would be the first to return to consciousness.
Sue, he hoped, because then they would be able to talk together without
interruption, at least for a little while. After what they had been
through together, he did not regard Duncan Mckenzie's presence as my
interferencethough perhaps Sue could hardly be expected to see it that
way. Beneath the covering of blankets, the first figure was stirring.
Pat hurried forward to give assistano~; then he paused, and said under
his breath: "Oh, not" Well, you couldn't win all the time, and a captain
had to 159  160  Arthur C. Clarke

do his duty, come what may. He bent over the scrawnv figute that was
struggling to rise, and said solicitously: "How do you feel, Miss.
Morley?"

To have, become a IV property was at once the best and the worst thing
that could have happened to Dr. Lawson. It had built up his
self-confidence, by convincing him that the world which he had always
affected to despise was really interested in his special knowledge and
abilities. (He did not realize how quickly he might be dropped again, as
soon as the Selene incident was finished.) It had given him an outlet
for expressing his genuine devotion to astronomy, somewhat stultified by
living too long in the exclusive society of astronomers. And it was also
earning him satisfactory quantities of money. But the program with which
he was now involved might almost have been designed to conflrrn his old
view that the men who weren't brutes were mostly fools. This, however,
was hardly the fault of Interplanet News, which could not resist a
feaiure that was a perfect fill-in for the long periods when nothing
would be happening out at the raft. Ile fact that Lawson was on the Moon
and his victims were on Earth presented only a minor technical problem,
which the TV technicians had solved long ago. The program could not go
out live; it had to be taped beforehand, and those annoying
two-and-a-half second pauses while the radio waves flashed from planet
to satellite and back again had to be sliced out. They would upset the
performers-nothing could be done about that-but by the time a skilled
editor had anachronized the tape, the listener would be unable to tell
that he was hearing a discussion that spanned almost four hundred
thousand kilometers. Chief Engineer Lawrence heard the program as he lay
flat on his back in the Sea of Thirst, staring up into the empty sky. It
was the first chance of resting he had had for more hours than he could
remember, but his mind was too active to let him sleep. In any event, he
had never acquired the knack of sleeping in a suit, and saw no need to
learn it now, for the first of the igloos was already on the way from
Port Roris. When that arrived, he would be able to live in wellearned,
and much-needed, comfort. Despite all the claims of the manufacturers,
no one can   A Fall of Moondust  161

function efficiently in a space suit for more than twenty-four hours,
for several obvious reasons, and several that are not so obvious. There
is, for example, that baffling complaint known as spaceman's itch,
affecting the small of the back--or even less accessible spots--after a
day's incarceration in a suit. The doctors claim that it is purely
psychological, and several heroic space medicos have worn suits for a
week or more to prove it. The demonstration has done nothing to affect
the incidence of the disease. The mythology of space suits is a vast,
complex, and frequently ribald subject, with a nomenclature all of its
own. No one is quite sure why one famous model of the 1970's was known
as the Iron Maiden, but any astronaut will gladly explain why 2010's
Mark XIV was called the Chamber of Horrors. There seems little truth,
however, in the theory that it was designed by a sadistic female
engineer, determined to inflict a diabolical revenge upon the opposite
sex. But Lawrence was reasonably at ease in his model, as he listened to
these enthusiastic amateurs put forward their ideas. it was just
possible--though very unlikely-that one of these uninhibited thinkers
might come up with an idea that could be of practical use. He had seen
it happen before, and was prepared to listen to -suggestions rather more
patiently than Dr. Lawson-who, it was obvious, would never learn to
suffer fools gladly. He had just demolished an amateur engineer from
Sicily, who wanted to blow the dust away by means of strategically
placed air jets. The scheme was typical of those put forward; even where
there was no fundamental scientific flaw, most of these ideas fell to
pieces when examined quantitatively. You could blow the dust away-if you
had an unlimited supply of air. While the voluble flow of
Italian-English was proceeding, Lawson had been doing some rapid
calculations. "I estimate, Signor Gusalli," he said, "that you would
need at least five tons of air a minute to keep open a hole large enough
to be useful. It would be quite impossible to ship such quantities out
to the site."

"Ah, but you could collect the air and use it over and over againity
"Thank you, Signor Gusalli," cut in the firm voice of the master of
ceremonies. "Now we have Mr. Robertson from London, Ontario. Wbats your
plan, Mr. Robertsonr' $41 suggest f-ree2ing."  162  Arthur C. Ckwke
"Just a minute," Protested Lawson. "How can you freeze dustr "First rd
saturate it with water. Next I'd sink cooling pipes and him the whole
mass into ice. That would hold the dust in place, and then it would be
easy to drill through it."

"It's an interesting idea," admitted Lawson, rather reluctantly. "At
least it's not as crazy as some that we've had. But the amount of water
needed would be impossibly large. Remember, the cruiser is fifteen
meters down-"

"What's that in feet?" said the Canadian, in a tone of voice that made
it clear that he was one of the hard-core antimetric school.

"Fifty feet----as I'm sure you know perfectly well. Now you'd have to
deal with a column at least a meter acrossyard, to you-so that would
involve-ab-approximately fifteen times ten squared times ten to the
fourth cubic centime. ters, which gives-why, of course, fifteen tons of
water. But this assumes no wastage at all; you'd really need several
times as much as this. It might come to as much as a hundred tons. And
how much do you think all the freezing gear would weight1 Lawrence was
quite impressed. Unlike many scientists he had known, Lawson had a firm
grasp of practical realities, and was also a rapid calculator. Usually
when an astronomer or a physicist did a *quick computation, his first
attempt was out by a factor of anything from ten to a hundred. As far as
Lawrence could judge, Lawson was always right the first time. "The
Canadian refrigeration enthusiast was still putting up a fight when he
was dragged off the program, to be replaced by an African gentleman who
wanted to use the opposite technique--heat. He planned to use a huge
concave mirror, focusing sunlight on the dust and fusing it into an
immobile mass. It was obvious that Lawson was keeping his temper only
with the utmost difficulty; the solar-fumace advocate was one Of
those-stubbom, self-taught "experts" who refused to admit that he could
possibly have made an error in his calculations. The argument was
getting really violent when a voice from much closer at hand cut across
the program. "The skis are coming, Mister Lawrence." Lawrence rolled
into a sitting position and climbed aboard the raft. If anything was
already in sight, that meant it was   A Fau of Moondust  163

practically on top of him.'Yes, there was Duster One-and also Duster
Three, which had made a difficult and expensive trip from the Lake of
Drought, the Sea!s smaller eqwvalent on Farside. That journey was a saga
in itself, which would remain forever unknown except to the handful of
men involved. Each ski was towing two sledges, piled high with
equipment. As they drew alongside the raft, the first item to be
unloaded was the large packing case containing the igloo. It was always
fascinating to watch one being inflated, and Lawrence had never
anticipated the spectacle more eagerly. (Yes, he definitely had
spaceman's itch.) The process was completely automatic; one broke a
seal, turned two separate levers-as a safeguard against the disastrous
possibility of accidental triggering--imd then waited. Lawrence did not
have to wait for long. The sides of the box fell'flat, revealing a
tightly packed, convoluted mass of silvery fabric. ft stirred and
struggled like some living creature. Lawrence had once seen a moth
emerging from the chrysalis, with its wings 96H crumpled, and the two
processes bore an uncanny similarity. The insect, however, had taken an
hour to reach its full size and splendor, but the igloo took only dine
minutes. As the air generator pumped an atmosphere into the flaccid
envelope, it expanded and stiffened in sudden jerks, followed by slow
periods of consolidation. Now it was a meter high, and was spreading
outward rather than upward. When it had reached the limits of its
extension, it started to go upward again, and the air lock popped away
from the main dome. The whole operation, one felt, should be accompanied
by laborious wheezings and puffings; it seemed quite wrong that it was
happening in utter silence. Now the structure had nearly reached its
flnal dimensions, and it was obvious that "igloo" was the only possible
name for it. Though they had been designed to provide protection against
a very different-though almost equally hostile--environment, the snow
houses of the Eskimos had been of exactly the same shape. The technical
problem had been similar; so was the solution. It took considerably
longer to install the flttings than to inflate the igloo, for all the
equipment-bunks, chairs, tables, cupboards, electronic gear-had to be
carried in through the air lock. Some of the larger items barely made
it, having  164  Arthur C. Clarke

been designed with only centimeters to spare. But at last there was a
radio call from inside the dome. "We're open for businessl" is said.
"Come on int" Lawrence wasted no time in accepting the invitation. He
began to undo the fittings of his suit while he was still in the outer
section of the two-stage air lock, and had the helmet off as soon as he
could hear voices from inside the dome, reaching him through the
thickening atmosphere. It was wonderful to be a free man again, to be
able to wriggle, scratch, move without encumbrance, talk to your fellows
face to face. The coffin-sized shower removed the stink of the space
suit and made him feel fit for human society once more. Then he put on a
pair of shorts--all that one ever wore in an igloo-and sat down to a
conference with his assistants. Most of the material he had ordered had
come in this consignment; the rest would be arriving on Duster Two in
the course of the next few hours. As he checked the supply lists, be
felt himself much more the master of the situation. Oxygen was
assured-barring catastrophe. Water had been getting short down there;
well, he could supply that easily enough. Food was a little more
difficult, though it was merely a matter of packing. Central Catering
had already supplied samples of chocolate, compressed meat, cheese, and
even elongated French rolls-all packed into cylinders three centimeters
wide. Presently he would shoot them down the air pipes, and give morale
in Selene a big boost. But this was less important than the
recommendations of his brains trust, enbodied in a dozen blueprints and
a terse six-page memorandum. Lawrence read it extremely carefully,
nodding agreement from time to time. He had already come to the same
general conclusions, and he could see no way of escaping from them. '
Whatever happened to passengers, Selene had made her last voyage. 
Chapter 24

The gale that had swept through Selene seemed to have carried away with
it more than the stagnant air. When he looked back on their first days
beneath the dust, Commodore Hansteen realized that there had often been
a hectic, even hysterical mood aboard, after the initial shock had worn
off. Trying to keep up their spirits, they had sometimes gone too far in
the direction of false gaiety and childish humor. Now that was all past,
and it was easy to see why. The fact that a rescue team was at work only
a few meters away was part of the explanation, but only part of it. The
spirit of tranquillity that they now shared came from their encounter
with death; after that, nothing could be quite the same The petty dross
of selfishness and cowardice had been burned out of them. No one knew
this better than Hansteen. He had watched it happen many times before,
whenever a ship!s company faced peril in the far reaches of the solar
system. Though he was not philosophically inclined, he had had plenty of
time to think in space. He had sometimes wondered if the real reason Why
men sought danger was that only thus could they find the companionship
and solidarity which they unconsciously craved. He would be sorry to say
good-by to all Chose people--yes, even to Miss. Morley, who was now as
agreeable and considerate as her temperament would allow. The Jact that
he could think that far ahead was the measure of his confidence; one
could never be certain, of course, but the situation now seemed
completely under control. No one knew exactly how Chief Engineer
Lawrence intended to get them out, but that problem was now merely a
choice between alternative methods. From now on, their imprisonment was
an inconvenience, not a danger. 165  166  Arthur C. CWKE

It was not even a hardship, since those food cylinders had started
popping down the air tubes. Though there had never been any risk of
starvation, the diet had grown extremely monotonous, and water had been
rationed for some time. Now, several hundred liters bad been pumped
down, to refill the almost empty tanks. It was strange that Commodore
Hansteen, who usually thought of everything, never asked himself the
simple question

"Whatever happened to all the water we started with?" Though he had more
immediate problems on his mind, the sight of that extra mass being taken
aboard should have set himw orrying. But it never did, until it was much
too late. Pat Harris and Chief Engineer Lawrence were equally to blame
for the oversight. It.was the one flaw in a beautifully executed plan.
And one flaw, of course, was all that was needed. The Engineering
Division of Earthside was still working swiftly, but no longer in a
desperate race against the clock. There was time now to construct
mock-ups of the cruiser, to sink them in the Sea off Port Roris, and to
try various ways of entering them. Advice, sensible and otherwise, was
still pouring in, but no one took any notice of it. The approach had
been decided, and would not be modified now, unless it ran into
unexpected obstacles. Twenty-four hours after the igloo had been set up,
all the special gear had been manufactured and shipped out to the site.
It was a record that Lawrence hoped he would never have to break, and he
was very proud of the men who had made it possible. Ile Engineering
Division seldom got the credit it deserved: like the air, everyone took
it for granted, forgetting that the engineers supplied that air. Now
that he was ready to go into action, Lawrence was quite willing to start
talking, and Maurice Spenser was more than willing to accommodate him.
This was the moment Spenser had been waiting for. As far as he could
remember, it was also the first time that there had ever been a TV
interview with camera and subject five kilometers apart. At this
fantastic magnification the image was a little fuzzy, of course, and the
slightest vibration in Aurigd's cabin set it dancing on the screen. For
this reason, everyone aboard the ship was motionless, and an
nonessential machinery had been switched off.   A Fall of Moondust  167

Chief Engineer Lawrence was standing on the edge of the raft, his
space-suited figure braced against the small crane that had been swung
over the side. Hanging from the D1 was a large concrete cylinder, open
at both ends-the first section of the tube that was now being lowered
into the dust.

"After a lot of thought," said Lawrence for the benefit of that distant
camera, but, above all, for the benefit of the men and women fifteen
meters beneath him, "weve decided that this is the best way to tackle
the problem. This cylinder is called a caisson"~-he pronounced it
"kasoon!~-"and it will sink easily under its own weight. The sharp lower
edge will cut through the dust like a knife through butter.

"We have enough sections to reach the cruiser. When we've made contact,
and the tube is sealed at the bottom-its pressure against the roof will
ensure that-well start scooping out the dust. As soon as that's done,
we'll have an open shaft~ like a small well, right down to Selene. "rbat
will be half the battle, but only half. Then well have to connect the
shaft to one of our pressurized igloos, so that when we cut through the
cruiser's roof there's no loss of air. But I think-I hope-that these are
fairly straightforward problems." He paused for a minute, wondering if
he should touch on any of the other details that made this operation so
much trickier than it looked. Then he decided not to; those who
understood could see with their own eyes, and the others would not be
interested, or would think he was boasting. This blaze of publicity
(about half a billion people were watching, so the Tourist Commissioner
had reported) did not worry him so long as things went well. But if they
did not ... He raised his arm and signaled to the crane operator.

"Lower awayl" Slowly, the cylinder settled into the dust until its full
four6 meter length had vanished, except-for a narrow ring just
protruding above the surface. It had gone down smoothly and easily.
Lawrence hoped that the remaining sections would be equally obliging.
One of the engineers was carefully going along the rim of the caisson
with a spirit level, to check that it was sinking vertically. Presently
he gave the thumbs-up signal, which Lawrence acknowledged in the same
manner. There had been a time when, like any regular spacehog, he could
carry out  168  Arthur C. Clarke

an extended and fairly technical conversation by sign-language alone.
This was an essential skill of the trade, for radio sometimes failed and
there were occasions when one did not wish to clutter up the limited
number of channels available.

"Ready for Number Twol" he said. This would be tricky. The first section
had to be held rigid while the second was bolted to it without altering
the alignment. One really needed two cranes for this job, but a
framework of I-beams, supported a few centimeters above the surface of
the dust, could carry the load when the crane was otherwise engaged. No
mistakes now, for God's sakel he breathed silently. Number-two section
swung off the sledge that had brought it from Port Roris, and three of
the technicians manhandled it into the vertical. This was the sort of
job where the distinction between weight and mass was vital. That
swinging cylinder weighed relatively little, but its momentum was the
same as it would be on Earth, and it could pulp a man if it managed to
trap him on one of those sluggish oscillations. And that was something
else peculiar to the Moon-the slow-motion movement of this suspended
mass. In this gravity, a pendulum took two-and-a-half times as long to
complete its cycle as it would on Earth. This was something that never
looked quite right, except to a man who had been born here. Now the
second section was upended and mated to the first one. They were clamped
together, and once again Lawrence gave the order to lower away. The
resistance of the dust was increasing, but the camon continued to sink
smoothly under its own weight "Eight meters gone," said Lawrence. "That
means we're just past the halfway mark. Number-three section coming UP.
" After this, there would only be one more, though Lawrence had provided
a spare section, just in case. He had a hearty respect for the Sea's
ability to swallow equipment. So far, only a few nuts and bolts had been
lost, but if that piece of caisson slipped from the hook, it would be
gone in a Ruh. Though it might not sink far, especially if it hit the
dust broadside on, it would be effectively out of reach even if it was
only a couple of meters down. They had no time to waste salvaging their
own salvage gear. There went number three, its last section moving with
al.   A Fall of Moondust  169

most imperceptible slowness. But it was still moving; In a few minutes,
with any luck at all, they would be knocking on the cruisees roof.
"Twelve meters down," said Lawrence. "Were only three meters above you
now, Selene. You should be able to hear us at any minute." Indeed they
could, and the sound was wonderfully reassuring. More than ten minutes
ago Hansteen had noticed the vibration of the oxygen inlet pipe as the
caisson scraped against it. You could tell when it stopped, and when it
started moving again. There was that vibration once more, accompanied
this time by a delicate shower of dust from the roof. The two air pipes
had now been drawn up so that about twenty centimeters of their lengths
projected through the ceiling, and the quick-drying cement which was
part of the emergency kit of all space vehicles had been smoothed around
their points of entry. It seemed to be working loose, but that
impalpable rain of dust was far too slight to cause alarm. Nevertheless,
Hansteen thought that he had better mention it to the skipper, who might
not have noticed.

"Funny," said Pat, looking up at the projecting pipe. "That cement
should hold, even if the pipe is vibrating." He climbed up on a seat,
and examined the air pipe more closely. For a moment he said nothing;
then he stepped down, looking puzzled and annoyed-and more than a little
worried. "Vhaivs the trouble?" Hansteen asked quietly. He knew Pat well
enough now to read his face like an open book.

"That pipe's pulling up through the roof," he said. "Sorne~-one up on
the raft's being mighty careless. It's shortened by at least a
centimeter, since I fixed that plaster." Then Pat stopped, suddenly
aghast. "My God," he whispered, "suppose. it's our own fault, suppose
we're still sinking."

"What if we aret' said the Commodore, quite ca". "You'd expect the dust
to continue settling beneath our weight. That doesn't mean we're in
danger. Judging by that pipe, we've gone down one centimeter in
twenty-FOUR hours. They can always give us some more tubing if we need
it." Pat laughed a little shamefacedly. "of course-that's the answer. I
should have thought of it before. We've probably been sinking slowly all
the time, but  170  Arthur C. Clffke this is the first chance we've had
to prove ft. still, rd better report to Mr. Lawrence--it may affect his
calculations." Pat started to walk toward the front of the cabin; but he
never made it.   Chapter 25 - Is-ON  a I

It had taken Nature a million years to set the trap that had snared
Selene and dragged her down into the Sea of Thirst. The second time, she
was caught in a trap that she had made herself. Because her designers
had no need to watch every gram of excess weight, or plan for journeys
lasting more than a few hours, they had never equipped Selene with those
ingenious but unadvertised arrangements whereby spaceships recycle all
their water supply. She did not have to conserve her resources in the
miserly manner of deep-space vehicles; the small amount of water
normally used and produced aboard, she simply dumpedover the past five
days, several hundred kilos of liquid and vapor had left Selene, to be
instantly absorbed by the thirsty dust. Many hours ago, the dust in the
immediate neighborhood of the waste vents had become saturated and had
turned into mud. Dripping downward through scores of channels, it had
honeycombed the surrounding Sea. Silently, patiently, the cruiser had
been washing away her own foundations. The gentle nudge of the
approaching caisson had done the rest. Up on the raft, the first
intimation of disaster was the Bashing of the red warning light on the
air purifier, synchonized with the howling of a radio klaxon across all
the spacesuit wave bands. The howl ceased almost immediately, as the
technician in charge punched the cutoff button, but the red light
continued to flash. A glance at the dials was enough to show Lawrence
the trouble. The air pipes-both of them-were no longer connected to
Selene. The purifier was pumping oxygen into the Sea through one pipe
and, worse still, sucking in dust through the other. Lawrence wondered
how long it would take to 171  172  Arthur C. Clarke

clean out the filters, but wasted no further time upon that thought. He
was too busy calling Selene. There was no answer. He tried all the
cruiser's frequencies, without receiving even a whisper of a carrier
wave. The Sea of Thirst was as silent to radio as it was to sound.
Thev're finished, he said to himself; it's all over. It was a near
thing, but we just couldn't make it. And all we needed was another hour.
What could have happened? he thought dully. Perhaps the -hull had
collapsed under the weight of the dust. No-that was very unlikely; the
internal air pressure would have prevented that. It must have been
another subsidence. He was not sure, but he thought that there had been
a slight tremor underfoot. From the beginning he had been aware of this
danger, but could see no way of guarding against it. This was a gamble
they had all taken, and Selene had lost.

Even as Selene started to fall, something told Pat that this was quite
different from the first cave-in. It was much slower, and there were
scrunching, squishing noises from outside the hull which. even in that
desperate moment, struck Pat as being unlike any sounds that dust could
possibly make. Overhead, the oxvgen pipes were tearing loose. They were
not sliding out smoothlv, for the cruiser was going down stem first,
tilting toward the rear. With a crack of splintering Fiberglas, the pipe
just ahead of the air-lock galley ripped through the roof and vanished
from sight. Immediately, a thick jet of dust sprayed into the cabin, and
fanned out in a choking cloud where it hit the floor. Commodore Hansteen
was nearest, and got there first. Tearing off his shirt, he swiftly
wadded it into a ball and rammed it into the aperture. The dust spurted
in all directions as he struggled to block the flow. He had almost
succeeded when the forward pipe ripped loose.-and the main lights went
out as, for the second time, the cable conduit was wrenched away.

"I'll take it!" shouted Pat. A moment later, also shirtless, he was
trying to stem the torrent pouring in through the hole. He had sailed
the Sea of Thirst a hundred times, yet never before had he touched its
substance with his naked skin. The gray powder sprayed into his nose and
eyes, half choking and wholly blinding him. Though it was as bone dry as
the dust from a Pharaohs tomb--dryer than this, indeed, for it was

  A Fall of Moondust  173

million times older than the pyramids-it had a curiously soapy feeling.
As -he fought against it, Pat found himself thinking: If there is one
death worse than being drowned, it's being buried alive. When the let
weakened to a thin trickle, he knew that he had avoided that fate-for
the moment. The pressure produced by fifteen meters of dust, under the
low lunar gravity, was not difficult to overcome-thougli it would have
been another story if the holes in the roof had been much larger. Pat
shook the dust from his head and shoulders, and cautiously opened his
eyes. At least he could see again; thank heaven for the emergency
lighting, dim though it wal The Commodore had already plugged his leak,
and was now calmly sprinkling water from a paper cup to lay the dust.
The technique was remarkably effective, and the few remaining clouds
quickly collapsed into patches of mud. Hansteen looked up and caught
Pat's eye.

"Well, Captain," he said. "Any theories?" There were times, thought Pat,
when the Commodores Olympian self-control was almost maddening. He would
like to see him break, just once. No-that was not really true. His
feeling was merely a flash of envy, even of jealousy-understandable, but
quite unworthy of him. He should be ashamed of it, and he was.

"I don't know whaes happened," he said. "Perhaps the people on top can
tell us." It was an uphill walk to the pilot's position, for the cruiser
was now tilted at about thirty degrees from the horizontal. As Pat took
his seat in front of the radio, he felt a..,kind of despairing numbness
that surpassed anything he had known since their original entombment. It
was a sense of resignation, an almost superstitious belief that the gods
were fighting against them, and that further struggle was useless. He
felt sure of this when he switched on the radio and found that it was
completely dead. "Me power was off; when that oxygen pipe had ripped out
the roof cable conduit, it had done a thorough job. Pat swiveled slowly
around in his seat. Twenty-one men and women were looking at him,
awaiting his news. But twenty of them he did not see, for Sue was
watching him, andhe was conscious only of the expression on her face. It
held an anxiety and readiness-but, even now, no hint of fear. As Pat
looked at her; his own feelings of despair  174  Arthur C. Clarke

seemed to dissolve. He felt a surge of strength, even of hope. "Tm
damned if I know what's happened," he said. "But rm sure of this-we're
not done for yet, by several lightyears. We may have sunk a little
farther, but our friends on the raft will soon catch up with us. This
will mean a slight delay-that's all. Tbere's certainly nothing to worry
about."

"I don't want to be an alarmist, Captain," said Barrett, "but suppose
the raft has sunk as well? What thent' "We'll know as soon as I get the
radio fixed," replied Pat, glancing anxiously at the wires dangling from
the roof cable ducl

"And until I get this spaghetti sorted out, youll have to put up with
the emergency lighting."

"I don't mind," said Mrs. Schuster. "I think it's rather cute .9' Bless
you, Mrs. S., said Pat to himself. He glanced quickly around the cabin;
though it was hard to see all their expressions in this dim lighting,
the passengers seemed calm enough. They were not quite so calm a minute
later; that was all the time it took to discover that nothing could be
done to repair the lights or radio. The wiring had been ripped out far
down inside the conduit, beyond reach of the simple tools available
here. "INS is rather more serious," reported Pat. "We won't be able to
communicate, unless they lower a microphone to make contact with us."
"rbat means," said Barrett, who seemed to like looking on the dark side
of things, "that they've lost touch with us. They won't understand why
we're not answering. Suppose they assume that we're all dead-and abandon
the whole operation?" 0 ne thought had flashed through Pat's mind, but
he had dismissed it almost at once.

"You've heard Chief Engineer Lawrence on the radio," he answered. "He's
not the sort of man who'd give up until he had absolute proof that we're
no longer alive. You needn't worry on that score."

"What about our air?" asked Professor Jayawardene anxiouly. "We're back
on our own resources again."

"That should last for several hours, now the absorbers have been
regenerated. Those pipes will be in place before then," answered Pat,
with slightly more confidence than he felt. "Meanwhile, we'll have to be
patient and provide our   A Fall of Moondust  175

own entertainment again. We did it for three days; we should be able to
manage for a couple of hours." He glanced again around the cabin,
looking for any signs of disagreement, and saw that one of the
passengers was rising slowly to his feet. It was the very last person he
would have expected-quiet little Mr. Radley, -who had uttered perhaps a
dozen words during the entire trip. Pat still knew no more about him
than that he was an accountant, and come from New Zealand-the only
country on Earth still slightly isolated from the rest of the world, by
virtue of its position. It could be reached, of course, as quickly as
any other spot on the planet, but it was the end of the line, not a way
station to somewhere else. As a result, the New Zealanders still proudly
preserved much of their individuality. 1bey claimed, with a good deal of
truth, to have salvaged all that was left of English culture, now that
the British Isles had been absorbed into the Atlantic Community.

"You want to say something, Mister Radieyr' asked Pat. Radley looked
around the dim-lit cabin, rather like a schoolmaster about to address a
class.

"Yes, Captain," he began. "I have a confession to make. I am very much
afraid that this is all my faulv'

When Chief Engineer Lawrence broke off his commentary, Earth knew within
two seconds that something had gone wront-though it took several minutes
for the news to reach Mars and Venus. But what had happened, no one
could guess from the picture on the screen. For a few seconds there had
been a flurry of frantic but meaningless activity, but now the immediate
crisis seemed to be over. The space-suited figures were huddled
together, obviously in conference-and with their telephone circuits
plugged in, so that no one could overbear them. It was very frustrating
to watch that silent discussion, and to have no idea of what it was
about. During those long minutes of agonizing suspense, while the studio
was trying to discover what was happening, Jules did his best to keep
the picture alive. It was an extremely difficult job, handling such a
static scene from a single camera position. Like all cameramen, Jules
hated to be pinned down in one spot. This site was.perfect, but it was
fixed, and he was getting rather tired of it. He had even asked if the
ship could be moved, but as Captain Anson put it, "I'm dskroned if Ill 
176  Arthur C. Clarke so hopping back and forth over the mountains. Ibis
is a spaceship, not a--chamois." So Jules had td ring the changes on
pans and zooms, though he used the latter with discretion, because
nothing upset viewers more quickly than being hurled back and forth
through space, or watching scenery explode in their faces. If he used
the power-zoom flat out, Jules could sweep across the Moon at about
flfty thousand kilometers an hour-and several million viewers would get
motion sickness. At last that urgent, sotmdless conference was breaking
up-, the men on the raft were unplugging their telephones. Now, perhaps,
Lawrence would answer the radio calls that had been bombarding him for
the last five minutes.

"My God," said Spenser, "I don't believe itl Do you see what they're
doing?"

"Yes," said Captain Anson, "and I don't believe it either. But it looks
as if they're abandoning the site." Like lifeboats leaving a sinking
ship, the two dust-skis, crowded with men, were pulling away from the
rafl  Chapter 26

Perhaps it was well that Selene was now out of radio contact; it would
hardly have helped morale if her occupants had known that the skis,
heavily overloaded with passengers, were heading away from the site. But
at the moment, no one in the cruiser was thinking of the rescue effort;
Radley was holding the center of the dimly lit stage.

"What do you mean-4his is all your faultt' asked Pat in the baffled
silence that followed the New Zealander's statement- only baffled as
yet; not hostile, because no one could take such a remark seriously.
"lift a long story, Captain," said Radley, speaking in a voice that,
though it was oddly unemotional, had undertones that Pat could not
identify. It was almost like listening to a robot, and it gave Pat an
unpleasant feeling somewhere in the middle of his spine. "I don't mean
to say that I deliberately caused this to happen. But I'm afraid it is
deliberate, and I'm sorry to have involved you all. You see-they are
after me." This is all we need, thought Pat. We really seem to have the
odds stacked against us. In this small company weve got a neurotic
spinster, a drug addict-and now a maniac. What other freaks are going to
reveal themselves before vwre finished? Ilen he realized the unfairness
of his judgment. "Me truth was that he had been very lucky. Against
Radley, Miss. Morley, and Hans Baldur (who had given on trouble after
that single, never-mentioned incident), he had the Commodore, Dr.
Mckenzie, the Schusters, little Professor Jayawardene, David Barrett-and
all the others who had done as they were asked, without making a fuss.
He felt a sudden surge of affection-even of love--toward them all, for
giving him their active or passive support. And especially toward Sue,
who wad already one jump 177  178 -  Arthur C. Clarke

ahead of him, as she always seemed to be. There she WVIS, moving
unobtrusively about her duties at the bark of the cabin. Pat doubted if
anyone noticed-certainly Radley did not-as she opened the medicine chest
and palmed one of those cigarette-sized cylinders of oblivion. If this
fellow gave trouble, she would be ready. At the moment, trouble seemed
the furthest thing from Radley's mind. He appeared to be completely
self-possessed and perfectly rational; there was no mad gleam in his
eye, or any other of the clich6s of insanity. He looked exactly what he
was-a middle-aged New Zealand accountant taking a holiday on the Moon.
Ms is very interesting, Mister Radley," said Commodore Hansteen in a
carefully neutral voice, "but please excuse our ignorance. Who are
they," and why should they be after YOUR I am sure, Commodore, that
you've heard of flying saucers?" Flying what? Pat asked himself.
Hansteen seemed better informed than he was.

"Yes, I have," he answered a little wearily. "I've come across them in
old books on astronautics. They were quite a craze, weren't they, about
eighty years ago?" He realized that "craze!' was an unfortunate word to
Use, and was relieved when Radley took no offense.

"Oh," he answered, "they go back much further . than that, but it was
only in the last century that people started to take notice of them.
There's an old manuscript from an English abbey dated 1290 that
describes one in detail-and that isn't the earliest report, by any
means. More than ten thousand flying saucer sightings have been recorded
prior to the twentieth century.w "Just a minute," interrupted Pat. "What
the devil do You mean by flying saucee? I've never heard of them." --nen
I'm afraid, Captain, that your education has been neglected," answered
Radley in a sorrowful voice. '~Me term flying saucee came into general
use after 1947 to describe the strange, usually disc-shaped vehicles
that have been investipting our planet for centuries. Some people prefer
to use the phrase 'unidentified flying objects.'" That aroused a few
faint memories in Pat's mind. Yes, he bad heard that term.in connection
with the hypothetical Out  A Fall of Moondust  179

siders. But there was no concrete evidence, of course, that alien space
vessels had ever entered the solar system.

"Do you really believe," said one of the other passengers skeptically,
"that there are visitors from space hanging round the Earth?"

"Much more than that," answered Radley. "They've often landed and made
contact with human beings. Before we came here, they had a base on
Farside, but they destroyed it when the first survey rockets started
taking close-ups."

"How do you know all this?" asked someone else. Radley seemed quite
indifferent to the skepticism of his audience; he must have grown used
to this response long ago. He radiated a kind of inner faith which,
however ill-founded it might be, was oddly convincing. His insanity had
exalted him into the realm beyond reason, and he was quite happy there.

"We have-contacts," he answered with an air of great importance. "A few
men and women have been able to establish telepathic communication with
the saucer people. So we know a good deal about them."

"How is it that no one else does?" asked another disbeliever. "If
they're really out there, why haven't our astronomers and space pilots
seen them?"

"Oh, but they have," Radley answered with a pitying smile, "and they're
keeping quiet. There's a conspiracy of silence among the scientists;
they don't like to admit that there are intelligences out in space so
much superior to ours. So when a pilot does'report a saucer, they make
fun of him. Now, of course, every astronaut keeps quiet when he meets
one.'9 "Have you ever met one, Commodoret' asked Mrs. Schuster,
obviously half convinced. "Or are you in the-what did Mister Radley call
it--conspiracy of silencet' "I'm very sorry to disappoint you," said
Hansteen. "You'll have to take my word for it that all the spaceships
I've ever met have been on Uoyd's Register." He caught Pat's eye, and
gave a little nod that said, "Ues go and talk this over in the air
lock." Now that he was quite convinced that Radley was harmless, he
almost welcomed this interlude. It had, very effectively, taken the
passengers! minds off the situation in which they now found themselves.
If Radley's brand of insanity could keep them entertained, then good
luck to it.

"Well, Pat," said Hansteen, when the air-lock door had  ISO  Arthur C.
Clarke

sealed them off from the argument, "what do you think of himr, "Does he
really believe that nonsenser, "Oh yes--every word of it. I've met his
type before~' The Commodore knew a good deal about Radley's peculiar
obsession; no one whose interest in astronautics dated back to the
twentieth century could fail to. As a young man, he had even read some
of the original writings on the subjectworks of such brazen fraudulence
or childish nalvet6 that they had shaken his belief that men were
rational beings. That such a literature could ever have flourished was a
disturbing thought, though it was true that most of those books had been
published in that psychotic era, the Frantic Fifties.

"Ms is a very peculiar situation," complained Pat. "At a time like
thb-all the passengers are arguing about flying saucers."

"I think it's an excellent idea," answered the Commodore. "What else
would you suggest they do? Let's face it, we've got to sit here and wait
until Lawrence starts knocking on the roof again."

"If hen still here. Barrett may be right-perhaps the raft has sunk."

"I think that's very unlikely. The disturbance was only a slight one.
How far would you imagine we went down?" Pat thought this over. Looking
back on the incident, it !,eemed to have lasted a long time. The fact
that he had been in virtual darkness, and had been fighting that jet of
dust, still further confused his memory. He could only hazard a guess.

"I'd say~ten meters."

"Nonsense! The whole affair only lasted a couple of seconds. I doubt if
we dropped more than two or three meters." Pat found this hard to
believe, but he hoped that the Commodore was right. He knew that it was
extremely difficult to judge weak accelerations, particularly when one
was under stress. Hansteen was the only man aboard who could have had
any experienced this; his verdict was probably correct---and was
certainly encouraging. "They may never have felt a thing on the
surface," continued Hansteen, "and they're probably wondering why they
can't make contact with us. Are you sure there's nothing we can do about
the radio?"

"Quite sure. The whole terminal block!s come loose at the   A Fall of
Moondust  181

end of the cable conduit. There's no way of reaching it from inside the
cabin."

"Well, I suppose that's that. We might as well go back and let Radley
try to convert us-if he can."

Jules had tracked the overcrowded skis for a hundred meters before he
realized that they were not as overcrowded as they should have been.
They carried seven men-and there had been eight on the site. He panned
swiftly back to the raft, and by the good luck or precognition that
separates the brilliant cameraman from the merely adequate one, he
arrived there just as Lawrence broke his radio silence.

"CE.E. calling," Lawrence said, sounding as tired and frustrated as
would any man who had just seen his carefully laid plans demolished.
"Sorry for the delay, but as you'll have gathered, we have an emergency.
There appears to have been another cave-in; how deep it is, we don't
know-but weve lost physical contact with Selene, and she's not answering
our radio.

"In case there's another subsidence, I've ordered my men to stand by a
few hundred meters away. The danger's very slight-we hardly felt that
last tremor-but there's no point in taking chances. I can do everything
that's necessary for the moment without any help.

"I'll call again in a few minutes. C.E.E. out." With the eyes of
millions upon him, Lawrence crouched at the edge of the raft,
reassembling the probe with which he had first located the cruiser. He
had twenty meters to play with; if she had gone deeper than that, he
would have to think of something else. The rod sank into the dust,
moving more and more slowly as it approached the depth where Selene had
rested. There was the original mark-fifteen point one five meters-just
disappearing through the surface. The probe continued to move, like a
lance piercing into the body of the Moon. How much farther? whispered
Lawrence to himself, in the murmurous silence of his space suit. The
anticlimax was almost laughable, except that this was no laughing
matter. The probe penetrated an extra meter and a half-a distance he
could comfortably span without straining his arms. Far more serious was
the fact that Selene had not sunk  182  Arthur C. Clarke

evenly, as Lawrence discovered after a few additional probings. Slie was
much lower at the stem, being now tilted at an angle of about thirty
degrees. That alone was enough to wreck his plan; he had relied upon the
caisson making a flush contact with the horizontal roof. He put that
problem aside for the moment; there was a more immediate one. Now that
the cruiser's radio was silent-and he had to pray that it was a simple
power failure-how could he tell if the people inside were still alive?
They would hear his probe, but there was no way in which they could
communicate with him. But of course there was. The easiest and most
primitive means of all, which could be so readily overlooked after a
century and a half of electronics. Lawrence got to his feet and called
the waiting skis.

"You can come back," he said. "rbere's no danger. She only sank a couple
of meters." He had already forgotten the watching millions. Though his
new plan of campaign had still to be drawn up, he was going into action
again.

 Chapter 27

When Pat and the Commodore returned to the cabin, the debate was still
going full blast. Radley, who had said so little until now, was
certainly making up for lost time. It was as if some secret spring had
been touched, or he had been absolved from an oath of secrecy. That was
probably the explanation; now that he was convinced that his mission was
discovered, he was only too happy to talk about it. Commodore Hansteen
had met many such believers--indeed, it was in sheer self-defense that
he had waded through the turgid literature of the subject. The approach
was almost always the same. First would be the suggestion that

"Surely, Commodore, you've seen some very strange things during your
years in space?" Then, when his reply was unsatisfaotory, there would be
a guarded-and sometimes not so guarded-hint that he was either afraid or
unwilling to speak. It was a waste of energy denying the charge; in the
eyes of the faithful, that only proved that he was part of the
conspiracy. The other passengers had no such bitter experience to warn
them, and Radley was evading their pomts with effortless ease. Even
Schuster, for all his legal training, was unable to pin him into a
comer; his efforts were as futile as trying to convince a paranoiac that
he was not really being persecuted.

"Does it seem reasonable," Schuster argued, "that if thousands of
scientists know this, not one of them will let the cat out of the bag?
You can!t keep a secret that bigl It would be like trying to hide the
Washington Monumend"

"Oh, there have been ittempts, to reveal the truth," Radley answered.
"But the evidence has a way of being mysteriously destroyed-as well as
the men who wanted to reveal it They can be utterly ruthless when it's
necessary." 183  184  Arthur C. Clarke

"But you said that-they-have been in contact with human beings. Isn't
that a contradiction?"

"Not at all. You see, the forces of good and evil are at war in the
Universe, just as they are on Earth. Some of the saucer people want to
help us, others to exploit us. T11e two groups have been struggling
together for thousands of years. Sometimes the conflict involves Earth;
that is how Atlantis was destroyed." Hansteen was unable to resist a
smile. Atlantis always got Into the act sooner or later-or, if not
Atlantis, then, Lemuria or Mu. They all appealed to the same type of
unbalanced, mystery-mongering mentality. The whole subject had been
thoroughly investigated by a group of psychologists during-if Hansteen
remembered correctly~the 1970's. They had concluded that around the
mid-twentieth century a substantial percentage of the population was
convinced that the world was about to be destroyed, and that the only
hope lay in intervention from space. Having lost faith in themselves,
men had sought salvation in the sky. The flying saucer religion
flourished among the lunatic fringe of mankind for almost exactly ten
years; then it had abruptly died out, like an epidemic that had run its
course. Two factors, the psychologists had decided, were responsible for
this: the first was sheer boredom; the second was the International
Geophysical Year, which had heralded Man's own entry into space. In the
eighteen months of the IGY, the sky was watched and probed by more
instruments, and more trained observers, than in the whole of previous
history. If there had been celestial visitors poised above the
atmosphere, this concentrated scientific effort would have revealed
them. It did nothing of the sort; and when the first manned vehicles
started leaving Earth, the flying saucers were still more conspicuous by
their absence. For most men, that settled the matter. Tte thousands of
unidentified flying objects that had been seen over the centuries had
some natural cause, and with better understanding of meteorology and
astronomy there was no lack of reasonable explanations. As the Age of
Space dawned, restoring Man's confidence in his own destiny, the world
lost interest in flying saucers. It is seldom, however, that a religion
dies out completely,   A Fall of Moondust  185

and a small body of the faithful kept the cult alive with fantastic
"revelations," accounts of meetings with extraterrestrials, and claims
of telepathic contacts. Even when, as frequefitly happened, the current
prophets were proved to have faked the evidence, the devotees never
wavered. They needed -their gods in the sky, and would not be deprived
of them "You still haven!t explained to us," Mr. Schuster was now
saying, "why the saucer people should be after you. What have you done
to annoy them?"

"I was getting too close to some of their secrets, so they have used
this opportunity to eliminate me." . "I should have thought they could
have found less elaborate ways."

"It is foolish to imagine that our limited minds can understand their
mode of thinking. But this would seem like'an accident; no one would
suspect that it was deliberate."

"A good point. Since it makes no difference now, could you tell us what
secret you were after? I'm sure we'd all like to know." Hansteen shot a
quick glance at Irving Schuster. The lawyer had struck him as a rather
solemn, humorless little man; irony seemed somewhat out of character.

"I'd be glad to tell you," answered Radley. "It really starts back in
nineteen fifty-three, when an American astronomer named O'Neill observed
something very remarkable here on the Moon. He discovered a small bridge
on the eastern border of the Mare Crisium. Other astronomers, of course,
laughed at him-but less prejudiced ones confirmed the existence of the
bridge. Within a few years, however, it had vanished. Obviously, our
interest bad alarmed the saucer people~ and they had dismantled it."
That "obvious," Hansteen told himself, was a perfect example of saucente
logic,-the daring non sequitur that left the normal mind helplessly
floundering several jumps behind. He had never heard of O'Neill's
Bridge, but there had been scores of examples of mistaken observations
in the astronomical records. The Martian canals were the classic case;
honest observers had reported them for years, but they simply did not
exist-at least not as the fine spider web that Lowell and others had
drawn. Did Radley think that someone had filled in the canals between
the time of Lowell and the securing of the first clear photographs of
Mars? He was quite capable of it, Hansteen was sm. -  186  Arthur C.
Clarke

Presumably ONEILL's B * ridge had been a trick of the light Ing, or of
the Moon's perpetually shifting shadows-but such a simple explanation
was not, of course, good enough for Radley. And, in any event, what was
the man doing here, a couple of thousand kilometers from the Mare
Crisium? Someone else had thought of that, and had put the same
question. As usual, Radley had a convincing answer at the tip of his
tongue.

"I'd hoped," he said, "to divert their suspicions by behaving like an
ordinary tourist. Because the evidence I was looking for lay on the
western hemisphere, I went east. I planned to get to the' Mare Crisium
by going across Farside; there were several places there that I wanted
to look at, too. But they were too clever for me. I should have guessed
that I'd be spotted by one of their agents-they can take human form, you
know. Probably they've been following me ever since I landed on the
Moon."

"I'd like to know," said Mrs. Schuster, who seemed to be taking Radley
with ever-increasing seriousness, "What they're going to do to us now."

"I wish I could tell you, ma'am," answered Radley. "We know that they
have caves dee ' p down inside the Moon, and almost certainly that's
where we're being taken. As soon as they saw that the rescuers were
getting close, they stepped in again. I'm afraid we're too deep for
anyone to reach us now." That's quite enough of this nonsense, said Pat
to himself. We've had our comic relief, and now this madman is starting
to depress people. But how can we shut him up? Insanity was rare on the
Moon, as in all frontier societies. Pat did not know how to deal with
it, especially with this confident, curiously persuasive variety. There
were moments when he almost wondered if there might be something in
Radley's delusion. in other circumstances, his natural, healthy
skepticism would have protected him, but now, after these days of strain
and suspense, his critical faculties were dimmed. He wished there was
some neat way of breaking the spell that this glib-tongued maniac was
undoubtedly casting. Half ashamed of the thought, he remembered the
quick coup de gr4ce that had put Hans Baldur so neatly to sleep. Without
intending to do so--at least, to his conscious knowledge-he caught
Harding's eye. To his alarm, there was an immediate response; Harding
nodded slightly and rose slowly   A Fall of Moondust  187 to his fed.
Not said Pat-but only to himself. I don't mean that, leave the poor
lunatic alone; what sort ot man are you, anyway? Then he relaxed, very
slightly. Harding was not attempting to move from his seat, four places
from Radley. He was merely standing there, looking at the New Zealander
with an unfathomable expression. It might even have been pity, but in
this dim lighting Pat could not be sure.

"I think ifs time to make my contribution," Harding said. "At least one
of the things our friend was telling you is perfectly true. He has been
followed-but not by saucerites. By me.

"For an amateur, Wilfred George Radley, I'd like to congratulate you.
It's been a fine chase-from Christchurch to Astrograd to Clavius to
Tycho to Ptolemy to Plato to Port Roris--4ind to here, which I guess is
the end of the trail, in more ways than one." Radley did not seem in the
least perturbed. He merely inclined his head in an almost regal gesture
of acknowledgment, as if he recognized Harding!s existence, but did not
wish to pursue his acquaintance.

"As you may have guessed," continued Harding, -rm a detective. Most of
the time I specialize in fraud. Quite interesting work, though I seldom
have a chance of talking about it. I'm quite grateful for this
opportunity.

"I've no interest-well, no professional interest-in Mister Radley's
peculiar beliefs. Whether they're true or not doesn't affect the fact
that he's a very smart accountant, earning a good salary back in N.Z.
Though not one good enough to pay for a month on the Moon.

"But that was no problent--because, you see, Mister Radley was senior
accountant at the Christchurch branch of Universal Travel Cards,
Incorporated. The system is supposed to be foolproof and double checked,
but somehow he managed to issue himself a card-Q Category-good for
unlimited travel anywhere in the solar system, for hotel and restaurant
billings, for cashing checks up to five hundred stollars on demand.
There aren't many Q cards around, and they're handled as if they're made
of plutonium.

"Of course, people have tried to get away with this sort of thing
before; clients are always losing their cards, and enterprising
characters have a fine time with them for a few days before they're
caught. But only a few days. The UTC central  188  Arthur C. Cktrke

biling system is very efficient-it has to be. 71tere are several
safeguards against unauthorized use, and until now, the longest rim
anyone!s had was a week."

"Nine days," Radley unexpectedly interjected.

"Sorry-you should know. Nine days, then. But Radley had been on the move
for almost three weeks before we spotted him. Held taken his annual
leave, and told the office he'd be vacationing quietly on the North
Island. Instead, he went to Astrograd and then on to the Moon, making
history in the process. For he's the first man-and we hope the last
one-to leave Earth entirely on credit.

"We still want to know exactly how he did it. How did he bypass the
automatic checking circuits? Did he have an accomplice in the computer
programing section? And similar questions of absorbing interest to VIV,
Inc. I hope, Radley, you'll let down your hair with me, just to satisfy
my curiosity. I think it's the least you can do in the circumstances.

"Still, we know why you did it-why you threw up a good job to go on a
spree that was bound to land you in jail. We guessed the reason, of
course, as soon as we found you were on the Moon. UTC knew all about
your hobby, but it didn!t affect your efficiency. They took a gamble,
and it's been an expensive one."

"I'm very sorry," Radley replied, not without dignity. Ilfbe firm's
always treated me well, and it did seem a shame. But it was in a good
cause, and if I could have found my evidence-2' But at that point
everyone, except Detective Inspector Harding, lost interest in Radley
and his saucers. The sound that they had all been anxiously waiting for
had come at last. Lawrence's probe was scratching against the roof.  Ch
"ter 28

I seem to have been here for half a lifetime, thought Maurice Spenser,
yet the sun is still low in the west, where it rises on this weird
world, and it's still three days to noon. How much longer am I going to
be stuck on this mountaintop, listening to Captain Anson's tall stories
of the spaceways, and watching that distant raft, with its twin igloos?
It was a question that no one could answer. When the caisson had started
to descend, it had looked as if another twenty-four hours would see the
job finished. But now they were back where they had started--and, to
make matters worse, all the visual excitement of the story was over.
Everydiing that would happen from now on would be hidden deep in the
Sea, or would take place behind the walls of an igloo. Lawrence still
stubbornly refused to allow a camera out on the raft, and Spenser could
hardly blame him. The Chief Engineer had been unlucky once, when his
commentary had blown up in his face, and was not going to risk it happe
again., Yet there was no question of Auriga abandoning the site which
she had reached at such expense. If all went well, there was one
dramatic scene still to come. And if all went badly, there would be a
tragic one. Sooner or later, those dustoskis would be heading back to
Port Roris-with or without the men and women they had come to save.
Spenser was not going to miss the departure of that caravan, whether it
took place under the rising or the setting sun, or beneath the fainter
light of the unmoving Earth. As soon as he had relocated Selene,
Lawrence had started drilling again. On the monitor screen, Spenser
could see the thin shaft of the oxygen-supply tube making its second
descent into the dust. Why was Lawrence bothering to do this, he
wondered, if he was not even sure whether anyone was 189  190  Arthur
C. Clarke

still alive aboard Selene? And how was he going to check this, now that
the radio had failed? I That was a question.that millions of people were
asking themselves as they watched the pipe sink down into the dust, and
perhaps many of them thought of the right answer. Yet, oddly enough, it
never occurred to anyone aboard Selene not even to the Commodore. As
soon as they heard that heavy thump against the roof, they knew at once
that this was no sounding rod, delicately probing the Sea. When, a
minute later, there came the unmistakable whiff of a drill chewing its
way through Fiberglas, they felt like condemned men who had been granted
a lastminute reprieve. This time, the drill missed the cable conduit-not
that it mattered now. The passengers watched, almost hypnotized, as the
grinding sound grew louder and the first flakes planed down from the
ceiling. When the head of the drill appeared and descended twenty
centimeters into the cabin, there was a brief but heartfelt burst of
cheering. Now what? said Pat to himself. We can't talk to them; how will
I know when to unscrew the drill? rm not going to make that mistake a
second time. Startlingly loud in this tense, expectant silence, the
metal tube resonated with the Drr Drr Drr DAH which, surely, not one of
Selene's company . would forget, however long he lived. Pat replied at
once, banging out an answering V with a pair of pliers. Now they know
we're alive, he thought. He had never really believed that Lawrence
would assume that they were dead and abandon them, yet at the same time
there was always that haunting doubt. The tube signaled again, this time
much more slowly. R was a nuisance having to learn Morse; in this age,
it seemed such an anachronism, and many were the bitter protests among
pilots and space engineers at the waste of effort. In your whole
lifetime, you might need it only once. But that was the point. You would
really need it then. Drr Drr DAH, rapped the tube. DAH Drr ... Drr Drr
Drr ... DAH Drr DAH Drr * Drr DAH Drr ... Dff ... Drr DAH DAJL Then, so
that iiiei~ would be no mistake, it started to repeat the word, but both
Pat and the Commodore, rusty though they were, had got the message.
"They're telling us to unscrew the drill," said Pat

"Well, here we go."   A Fall of Moondust  191

71e brief rush of air gave everyone a moment of unnecessary panic as the
pressure equalized. Then the pipe was open to the upper world, and
twenty-two anxious men and women waited for the first breath of oxygen
to come gushing down it. Instead, the tube spoke. Out of the open
orifice came a voice, hollow and sepulchral, but perfectly clear. It was
so loud, and so utterly unexpected, that a gasp of surprise came from
the company. Probably not more than half a dozen of these'men and women
had ever heard a speaking tube; they had grown up in the belief that
only through electronics could the voice be sent across space. This
antique revival was as much a novelty to them as a telephone would have
been to an ancient Greek.

"Ms is Chief Engineer Lawrence speaking. Can you hear met' Pat cupped'
his hands over the opening, and answered slowly: "Hearing you loud and
clear. How do you receive usr "Very clear. Are you all right?"

"Yes-what's happened?"

"You've dropped a couple of meters-no more than that. We hardly noticed
anything up here, until the pipes came adrift. How's your air?"

"Still good-but the sooner you start supplying us, the better."

"Don't worry, we'll be pumping again as soon as we get the dust out of
the filters, and can rush out another drill head from Port Roris. The
one you've just unscrewed was the only spare; it was lucky we had that."
So it will be at least an hour, Pat told himself, before their air
supply could be secured again. That, however, was not the problem that
now worried him. He knew how Lawrence had hoped to reach them, and he
realized that the plan would not work now that Selene was no longer on
an even keel.

"How are you going to get at us?" he asked bluntly. Ilere was only the
briefest of hesitations before Lawrence answered.

"I've not worked out the details, but we'll add another seetion to the
caisson and continue it down until it reaches you. Then we'll start
scooping out the dust until we get to the bottom. That will take us to
within a few centimeters of You;  M  Arthur C. Clarke well cross that
gap somehow. But theres one thing I want you to do first .11 "What's
that?"

"I'm ninety per cent sure that youwon't settle agaiii---but if you're
going to, I'd rather you did it now. I want you all to jump up and down
together for a couple of minutes."

"Will that be safe?" asked Pat doubtfully. "Suppose this pipe tears out
again?"

"Then you can plug it again. Another small hole won't matter-but another
subsidence will, if it happens when we're trying to make a man-sized
opening in the roof." Selene had seen some strange sights, but this was
undoubtedly the strangest. Twenty-two men and women were solemnly
jumping up and down in unison, rising to the ceiling and then pushing
themselves back as vigorously as possible to the floor. AD the while Pat
kept a careful watch on that pipe leading to the upper world; after a
minute's strenuous exertion on the part of her passengers, Selene had
moved downward by less than two centimeters. He reported this to
Lawrence, who received the news with thankfulness. Now that he was
reasonably sure that Selene would not shift again, he was confident that
he could get these people out. Exactly how, he was not yet certain, but
the plan was beginning to form in his mind. It took shape over the next
twelve hours, in conferences with his brains trust and experiments on
the Sea of Thirsl The Engineering Division had learned more about the
dust in the last week than during the whole of its previous existence.
It was no longer fighting in the dark against a largely unknown
opponent. It understood which liberties could be taken, and which could
not. Despite the speed with which the changed plans were drawn up and
the necessary hardware constructed, there was no undue haste and
certainly no carelessness. For this was another operation that had to
work the first time. If it failed, then at the very least the caisson
would have to be abandoned and a new one sunk. And at the worst-those
aboard Selene would be drowned in dust.

"Ies a pretty problem," said Tom Lawson, who liked pretty problems-and
not much else. "The lower end of the caisson's wide open to the dust,
because it's resting against Selene at only one point, and the tilt of
the roof prevents it   A Fall of Moondust  193

from sealing. Before we can pump out the dust, we have to close that
gap.

"Did I say 'pump'? That was a mistake. You can't pump the stuff; it has
to be lifted. And if we tried that as things are now, it would flow in
just as fast at the bottom of the tube as we took it out of the top."
Tom paused and grimed sardonically at his multimillion audience, as if
challenging it to solve the problem he had outlined. He let his viewers
stew in their own thoughts for a while, then picked up the model lying
on the studio table. Though it was an extremely simple one, he was
rather proud of it, for he had made it himself. No one could have
guessed, from the other side of the camera, that it was only cardboard
sprayed with aluminum paint.

"This tube," he said, "represents a short section of the caisson thaes
now leading down to Selene an which, as I said, Is fall of dust. Now
thi&--P with his other hand, he picked up a stubby cylinder, closed at
one end----"fits snugly inside the caisson, Eke a piston. It's very
heavy, and will try to sink under its own weight. But it can't do so, of
course, while the dust is trapped underneath it." Tom turned the piston
until its flat end was toward the camera. He pressed his forefinger
against the center of the circular face, and a small trap door opened.

"This acts as a valve. When it's open, dust can flow through and the
piston can sink down the shaft . As soon as it reaches the bottom, the
valve will be closed by a signal from above. That will seal off the
caisson, and we can start scooping out the dust.

"It sounds very simple, doesn't it? Well, it's not. There are about
fifty problems I haven't mentioned. For example, as the caisson is
emptied, it win try to float up to the surface with a lift of a good
many tons. Chief Engineer Lawrence has worked out an ingenious system of
anchors to hold it down.

"You'll realize, of course, that even when this tube has been emptied of
dust, there will still be that wedge-shaped gap between its lower end
and Selene's ro6f. How Mister Lawrence proposes to deal with that, I
don't know. And please don't send me any more suggestions; we've already
had enough half-baked ideas on this program to last a lifetime.

"This--piston gadget-isn't just theory. The engineers here  194  Arthur
C. Ckirke

have built and tested it during the last twelve hours, and ic4 now in
action. If I can make any sense of the signals the maes waving at me, i
think were now going over to the Sea of Thirst, to find out what's
happening to the raft." The temporary studio in the Hotel Roris faded
from a million screens; in its place was the picture that, by this time,
must have been familiar to most of the human race. There were now three
igloos of assorted sizes on or around the raft; as the sunlight glinted
from their reflecting outer surfaces, they looked like giant drops of
mercury. One of the dust-skis was parked beside the largest dome; the
other two were in transit, still shuttling supplies from Port Roris.
Like the mouth of a well, the caisson projected from the Sea. Its rim
was only twenty centimeters above the dust, and the opening seemed much
too narrow for a man to enter. It would, indeed, have been a very tight
fit for anyone weanng: a space suit-but the crucial part of this
operation would be done without suits. At regular intervals, a
cylindrical grab was disappearing into the well, to be hauled back to
the surface a few seconds later by a small but powerful crane. On each
withdrawal, the grab would be swung clear of the opening, and would
disgorge its contents back into the Sea. For an instant a gray dunces
cap of dust would stand in momentary balance on the level plain; then it
would collapse in slow motion, vanishing completely before the next load
had emerged from the shaft. it was a conjuring trick being carried out
in broad daylight, and it was fascinating to watch. More effectively
than a thousand words of description, it told the viewers all that they
needed to know about the Sea of Thirst. The grab was taking longer on
its journeys now, as it plunged deeper into the dust. And at last there
came the moment when it emerged only half full, and the way to Selene
was open-except for that roadblock at the end.   Chqter 29

,IWE're still in very good spirits," said Pat, into the microphone that
had now been lowered down the air shafl

"Of course, we had a bad shock after that second cave-in, when we lost
contact with you-but now we're sure You'll Soon have us out. We can hear
the grab at work, as it Scoops UP the dust, and ivs wonderful to know
that help is so close. Well never forget," he added, a little awkwardly,
"the efforts that so many people have made to help us, and whatever
happens we'd like to thank them. All of us are quite sure that
everything possible has been done. "And now ril hand over the mike,
since several of us have messages we want to send. With any luck at all,
this will be the last broadcast from Selene." As he gave the microphone
to Mrs. Williams, he realized that he might have phrased that last
remark a little better; it could be interpreted in two ways. But now
that rescue was so close at hand, he refused to admit the Possibility Of
further setbacks. They had been through so much that, surely, nothing
more would happen to them now. yet he knew that the final stage of the
operation would be the most difficult, and the most critical, of all.
They had discussed it endlessly during the last few hours, ever since
Chief Engineer Lawrence had explained his plans to them There was little
else to talk about now that, by common consent, the subject of flying
saucers was vetoed. They could have continued with the book readings,
but somehow both Shane and The orange and the Apple had lost their
appeal. No one could concentrate on anything now except the prospects of
rescue, and the renewal of life that lay before them when they had
rejoined the human race. From overhead, there was a sudden, heavy thump-
That could mean only one thing; the grab had reached the bottom 195 
196  Arthur C. Clarke

of the shaft, and the caisson was clear of dust. Now it could be coupled
to one of the igloos and pumped full of air. It took more than an hour
to complete the connection and make all the necessary tests. The
specially modified Mark XDC igloo, with a hole in its floor just large
enough to accornmodate the protruding end of the caisson, had to be
positioned and inflated with the utmost care. The lives of Selene's
passengers, and also those of the men attempting to rescue them, might
depend upon this air seal. Not until Chief Engineer Lawrence was
thoroughly satisfied did he strip off his space suit and approach that
yaiwning hole. He held a floodlight above the opening and looked down
into the shaft, which seemed to dwindle away to infinity. Yet it was
just seventeen meters to the bottom; even in this low gravity, an object
would take only five seconds to fall that distance. Lawrence turned to
his assistants; each was weanng a space suit, but with the face plate
open. If anything went wrong, those plates could be snapped shut in a
fraction of a second, and the men inside would probably be safe. But for
Lawrence there would be no -hope at all-nor for the twenty-two aboard
Selene.

"You know exactly what to do," he said. "If I want to come up in a
hurry, all of you pull on the rope ladder together. Any questions?"
Ilere were none; everything had been thoroughly rehearsed. With a now to
his men anda chorus of

"Good lucks" in return, Lawrence lowered himself into the shaft. He let
himself fall most of the way, checking his speed from time to time by
grabbing at the ladder. On the Moon it was quite safe to do this; well,
almost safe. Lawrence had seen men killed because they had forgotten
that even this gravity field could accelerate one to a lethal speed in
less than ten seconds. This was like Alices fall into Wonderland (so
much of Carroll might have been inspired by space travel), but there was
nothing to see on the way down except the blank concrete wall, so close
that Lawrence had to squint to focus upon it. And then, with the
slightest of bumps, he had reached the bottom. He squatted down on the
little metal platform, the size and shape of a manhole cover, and
examined it carefully. The trap-door valve that had been open during the
piston's de  A Fall of Moondust ~ 197

scent through the dust was leaking very slightly, and a trickle of gray
powder was creeping round the seal. It was nothing to worry about, but
Lawrence could not help w6ndering what would happen if the valve opened
under the pressure from beneath. How fast would the dust rise up the
shaft, like water in a well? Not as fast, he was quite certain, as he
could go up that ladder. Beneath his feet now, only centimeters away,
was the roof of the cruiser, sloping down into the dust at that
maddening thirty degrees. His problem was to mate the horizontal end of
the shaft with the sloping roof of the cruiser-and to do it so well that
the coupling would be dust-tight. He could see no flaw in the plan; nor
did he expect to, for it had been devised by the best engineering brains
on Earth and Moon. It even allowed for the possibility that Selene might
shift again, by a few centimeters, while he was working here. But theory
was one thing-and, as he knew all too well, practice was another. There
were six large thumbscrews spaced around the circumference of the metal
disc on which Lawrence was sitting, and he started to turn them one by
one, like a drummer tuning his instrument. Connected to the lower side
of the platform was a short piece of concertina-like tubing, almost as
wide as the caisson, and now folded flat. It formed a flexible coupling
large enough for a man to crawl through, and was now slowly opening as
Lawrence turned the screws. One side of the corrugated tube had to
stretch through forty centimeters to reach the sloping roof; the other
had to move scarcely at all. Lawrence's chief worry had been that the
resistance of the dust would prevent the concertina from opening, but
the screws were easily overcoming the pressure. Now none of them could
be tightened any further; the lower end of the coupling must be flush
against Selene's roof, and sealed to it, he hoped, by the rubber gasket
around its rim. How tight that seal was, he would very soon know.
Automatically checking his escape route, Lawrence glanced up the shaft.
He could see nothing past the glare of the floodlight hanging two meters
above his head, but the rope ladder stretching past it was extremely
reassuring.

"I've let down the connector," he shouted to his invisible colleagues.
"It seems to be flush against the roof. Now I'm going to open the
valve." Any mistake now, and the whole shaft would be flooded,  198
Arthur C. Clarke

perhaps beyond possibility of further use. Slowly and gently, Lawrence
released the trap door which had allowed the dust to pass through the
piston while it was descending. There was no sudden upwelling; the
corrugated tube beneath his feet was holding back the Sea. Lawrence
reached through the valve-and his fingers felt the roof of Selene, still
invisible beneath the dust but now only a handsbreath away. Few
achievements in all his life had ever given him such asense of
satisfaction. The job was 90 far from finished-but he had reached the
cruiser. For a moment he crouched in his little pit, feeling as some
old-time miner must have when the first nugget of gold gleamed in the
lamplight. He banged three times on the roof. Immediately, his signal
was returned. There was no point in striking up a Morse conversation,
for, if he wished, he could talk directly through the microphone
circuit, but he knew the psychological effect that his tapping would
have. It would prove to the men and Women in Selene that rescue was now
only centimeters away. Yet there were stiff major obstacles to be
demolished, and the next one was the manhole cover on which he was
sitting--the face of the piston itself. It had served its purpose,
holding back the dust while the caisson was being einptied, but now it
had to be removed before anyone could escape from Selene. This had to be
donei. however, without disturbing the flexible coupling that it had
helped to place in position. To make this possible, the circular face of
the piston had been built so that it could be lifted out, like a
saucepan lid, when eight large bolts were unscrewed. It took Lawrence
only a few minutes to deal with these and to attach a rope to the new
loose metal disc; then he shouted, "Haul away!" A fatter man would have
had to climb the shaft while the circular lid came up after him, but
Lawrence was able to squeeze against the wall while the metal plate,
moving edgeways, was hoisted past him. There goes the last line of
defense, he told himself, as the disc vanished overhead. Now it would be
impossible to seal the shaft again if the coupling failed and the dust
started to pour in.

"Bucketl" he shouted. It was already on its way down. Forty years ago,
thought Lawrence, I was playing on a California beach with bucket and
spade, making castles in the sand. Now here I am on the Moon--Chief
Engineer, Earth  A Fall of Moondust  199

side, no less-shoveling in even deadlier earnest with the whole human
race looking over my shoulder. ~ When the first load was hoisted up, he
had exposed a considerable area of Selene's roof. The volume of dust
trapped inside the coupling-tube was quite small, and two more
bucketfuls disposed of it. Before him now was the aluminized fabric of
the sun shield, which had long ago crumpled under the pressure, Lawrence
cut it away without difficulty-it was so fragile that he could tear it
with his bare hands-and exposed the slightly roughened Fiberglas of the
outer hull. To cut through that with a small power saw would be easy; it
would also be fatal. For by this time Selene's double hull had lost its
integrity; when the roof had been damaged, the dust would have flooded
into the space between the two walls. It would be waiting there, under
pressure, to come spurting out as soon as he made his first incision.
Before he could enter Selene, that thin but deadly layer of dust would
have to be immobilized. Lawrence rapped briskly against the roof; as he
had expected, the sound was muffled by the dust. What he did not expect
was to receive an urgent, frantic tattoo in reply. This, he could tell
at once, was no reassuring

"I'm O.K." signal from inside the cruiser. Even before the men overhead
Could relay the news to him, Lawrence had guessed that the Sea of Thirst
was making one final bid to keep its prey.

Because Karl Johanson was a nucleonics engineer, had a sensitive nose,
and happened to be sitting at the rear of the bus, he was the one who
spotted the approach of disaster. He remained quite still for a few
seconds, nostrils twitching, then said. "Txcuse me" to his companion in
the aisle seat, and strolled quietly to the washroom. He did not wish to
cause alarm if there was no need, especially when rescue seemed so near.
But in his professional lifetime he had learned, through more examples
than he cared to remember, never to ignore the smell of burning
insulation. He wag in the washroom for less than fifteen seconds. When
he emerged he was walking quickly, but not quickly enough to cause
panic. He went straight to Pat Harris, who was deep in conversation with
Commod re Hanstem, and interrupted them without ceremony.  200  Arthur
C. Clarke

"Captain," he said in a low, urgent voice, "were on fire. Go and check
in the toilet. I've not told anyone else." In a second, Pat was gone,
and Hansteen with him. In space, as on the sea, no one stopped to argue
when he heard the word

"Fire." And Johanson was not the sort of man to raise a false alarm;
like Pat, he was a Lunar Administration tech, and had been one of those
whom the Commodore had selected for his riot squad. The toilet was
typical of that on any small vehicle of land, sea, air, or space; one
could touch every wall without changing position. But the rear wall,
immediately above the washbowl, could no longer be touched at all. The
Fiberglas was blistered with heat, and was buckling and bulging even
while the horrified spectators looked at it.

"My Godl" said the Commodore. "That will be through in a minute. What's
causing itt' But Pat had already gone. He was back a few seconds later,
carrying the cabin's two small fire extinguishers under his arms.

"Commodore," he said, "go and report to the raft. Tell them we may only
have a few minutes. I'll stay here in case it breaks through." Hansteen
did as he was told. A moment later Pat heard his voice'calling the
message into the microphone, and the siudden turmoil among the
passengers that followed. Almost immediately the door opened again, and
he was joined by Mckenzie.

"Can I help?r asked the scientist.

"I don't think so," Pat answered, holding the extinguisher at the,
ready. He felt a curious numbness, as if this was not really happening
to him, but was all a dream from which he would soon awaken. Perhaps by
now he had passed beyond fear; having surmounted one crisis after
another, all emotion had been wrung out of him. He could still endure,
but he could no longer react.

"Whaes causing it?" asked Mckenzie, echoing the Commodores unanswered
question and immediately following it with another. "What's behind this
bulkhead?"

"Our main power supply. Twenty heavy-duty cells."

"How much energy in them?"

"Well, we started with five thousand kilowatt-hours. We probably still
have half of it." "Meres your answer. Something's shorting put our power
  A Fall of Moondust  201

supply. It's probably been burning up ever since the overhead wiring got
ripped out." The explanation made sense, if only because there was no
other source of energy aboard the cruiser. She was completely fireproof,
so could not support an ordinary combustion. But there was enough
electrical energy in her power cells to drive her at full speed for
hours on end, and if this dissipated itself in raw heat the results
would be catastrophic. Yet this was impossible; such an overload would
have tripped the circuit breakers at once-unless, for some reason, they
had jammed. They had not, as Mckenzie reported after a quick check in
the air lock.

"All the breakers have jumped," he said. "The circuits are as dead as
mutton. I don't understand it." Even in this moment of peril, Pat could
hardly refrain from smiling. Mckenzie was the eternal scientist; he
might be about to die, but he would insist on knowing how. If he was
being burned at the stake-and a similar fate might well be in store--he
would ask his executioners, "What kind of wood are you using?" The
folding door creased inward as Hansteen came back to report.

"Lawrence says he'll be through in ten minutes," he said. "Will that
wall hold until thenr "God knows," answered Pat. "It may last for
another hour-it may go in the next five seconds. Depends how the FIWS
spreading."

"Aren't there automatic fire-fighting appliances in that compartment?"

"Meres no point in, having them-this is our pressure bulkhead, and
there's normally vacuum on the other side. That's the best fire fighter
you can get." wrbaes itl" exclaimed Mckenzie. "Don't you see? The whole
compartment's flooded. When the roof tore, the dust started to work its
way in. It's shorting all the electrical equipment." Pat knew, without
further discussion, that Mckenzie was right. By now all the sections
normally open to space must be packed with dust. It would have poured in
through the broken roof, flowed along the gap between the double hull,
slowly accumulated around the open bus bars in the power compartment.
And then the pyrotechnics would have started:  202  Arthur C. Clarke

there vras enough meteoric iron in the dust to make it a good conductor.
It would be arcing and shorting in there like a thousand electric fires.

"If we sprinkled water on that wall," said the Commodore, "would it help
matters-or would it crack the Fiberglas?"

"I think we should try it," answered Mckenzie, "but very carfully-not
too much at a time." He filled a plastic cupthe water was already
hot-and looked enquiringly at the others. Since there were no
objections, he began to splash a few drops on the slowly blistering
surface. Ile cracklings and poppings that resulted were so terrifying
that he stopped at once. It was too big a risk; with a metal wall, it
would have been a good idea, but this nonconducting plastic would
shatter under the thermal stresses.

"There's nothing we can do in here," said the Commodore. "Even those
extinguishers won't help much. We'd better, get out and block off this
whole compartment. The door will act as a fire wall, and give us some
extra time." Pat hesitated. The heat was already almost unbearable, but
it seemed cowardice to leave. Yet Hansteen's suggestion made excellent
sense; if he stayed here until the fire broke through, he would probably
be gassed at once by the fumes.

"Right-let's get out," he agreed. "We'll see what kind of barricade we
can build behind this door." He did not think they would have much time
to do it; already he could hear, quite distinctly, a frying, blistering
sound from the wall that was holding the inferno at bay.  "Chapter 30'

The news that Selene was on fire made no difference at all to Lawrence's
actions. He could not move any faster than he was doing now; if he
attempted it, he might make a mistake, just when the trickiest part of
the entire job was coming up. All he could do was to forge ahead, and
hope that he would beat the flames. The apparatus now being lowered down
the shaft looked like an overgrown grease gun, or a giant version of
those syr~ inges used to put icing on wedding cakes. This one held
neither grease nor icing, but an organic silicon compound under great
pressure. At the moment it was liquid; it would not remain so for long.
Lawrence!s first problem was to get the liquid between the double bull,
without letting the dust escape. Using a small rivet gun, he fired
'seven hollow bolts into Selene's outer skin---one in the center of the
exposed circle, the other six evenly spaced around its circumference. He
connected the syringe to the center bolt, and pressed the trigger. There
was a slight hiss as the fluid rushed through the hollow bolt, its
pressure opening a tiny valve in the bullet-shaped nose. Working very
swiftly, Lawrence moved from bolt to bolt, shooting equal charges of
fluid through each. Now the stuff would have spread out almost evenly
between the two hulls, in a ragged pancake more than a meter across
No--not a pancake-a souffl,$, for it would have started to foam as soon
as it escaped from the nozzle. And a few seconds later, it would have
started to set, under the influence of the catalyst injected with it.
Lawrence looked at his watch; in five minutes that foam would be
rock-hard, though as porous as pumice-which, indeed, it would very
closely resemble. "Mere would be no chance of 203  204  Arthur C.
Clar*e

more dust entering this section of the hull; what was already there was
frozen in place. There was nothing he could do to shorten that five
minwes; the whole. plan depended upon the foam setting to a known
consistency. If his timing and positioning had been faulty, or the
chemists back at Base had made an error, the people aboard Selene were
already as good as dead. He used the waiting period to tidy up the
shaft, sending all the equipment back to the surface. Soon only Lawrence
himself was left at the bottom, with no tools at all but his bare hands.
If Maurice Spenser could have smuggled his camera into this narrow
space-and he would. have signed any reasonable contract with the Devil
to have done so-his viewers would have been quite unable to guess
Lawrences next move. They would have been still more baffled when what
looked like a child's hoop was slowly lowered down the shaft But this
was no nursery toy; it was the key that would open Selene.

Sue had already marshaled the passengers to the frontand now much
higher-end of the cabin. They were all standing there in a tightly
packed group, looking anxiously at the ceiling and straining their ears
for every encouraging sound. Encouragement, thought Pat, was what they
needed now. And he needed it more than any of them, for he alone
knew-unless Hansteen or Mckenzie had guessed it-the real magnitude of
the danger they were facing. The fire was bad enough, and could kill
them if it broke through into the cabin. But it was slow-moving, and
they could fight it, even if only for a while. Against explosion,
however, they could do nothing. For Selene was a bomb, and the fuse was
already lit. The stored-up energy in the power cells that drove her
motors and all her electrical devices could escape as raw heat, but it
could not detonate. That was not true, unfortunately, of the
liquid-oxygen tanks. They must still hold many liters of the fearfully
cold, violently reactive element. When the mounting heat ruptured those
tanks, there would be both a physical and a chemical explosion. A small
one, it was ft-w-perhaps equivalent to a   A Fall of Moondust  205

hundred kilograms of T.N.T. But that would be quite enough to smash
Selene to pieces. Pat saw no point in mentioning this to Hansteen, who
was already planning his barricade. Seats were being unscrewed from the
rows near the front of the cabin, and jammed between the rear row and
the toilet door. It looked as if the Commodore was preparing for an
invasion rather than a fire-as indeed he was. The fire itself, because
of its nature, might~,not spread beyond the power-cell compartment, but
as soon as that cracked and blistered wall finally gave way, the dust
would come flooding through.

"Commodore," said Pat, "while you7re doing this, nl start organizing the
passengers. We can't have twenty people trying to get out at once." That
was a nightmare prospect that had to be avoided at all costs. Yet it
would be hard to avoid panic---even in this well-disciplined
community-if a single narrow tunnel was the only means of escape from a
rapidly approaching death. Pat walked to the front of the cabin; on
Earth that would have been a steep uphill climb, but here a
thirty-degree slope was barely noticeable. He looked at the anxious
faces ranged in front of him and said:"We're going to be out of here
very soon. When the ceiling opens, a rope ladder will be dropped down.
The ladies will go first, then the men-all in alphabetical order. Don't
bother to use your feet. Remember how little you weigh here, and go up
hand over hand, as quickly as you can. But don't crowd the person in
front; you should have plenty of time, and it will take you only a few
seconds to reach the top. Sue, please sort everyone out in the right
order. Harding, Bryan, Johanson, Barrett-rd like you to stand by as you
did before. We may need your help---?" He did not finish the sentence.
There was a kind of soft, muffled explosion from the rear of the
cabin-nothing spectacular; the popping of a paper bag would have made
more noise. But it meant that the wan was down-while the ceiling,
unfortunately, was still intact.

On the other side of the roof, Lawrence laid his hoop flat against the
Fiberglas and started to fix it in position with quick-drying cement.
The ring was almost as wide as the little well in which he was
crouching; it came to within a few centimeters of the corrugated walls.
Though it was perfectly  206  Arthur C. Clarke safe to handle, he
treated it with exaggerated care. He had never acquired that easy
familiarity with explosives that Characterizes those who have to live
with them. The ring charge he was tamping in place was a perfectly
conventional specimen of the art, involving no technical problems. It
would make a neat clean cut of exactly the desired width and thickness,
doing in a thousandth of a second a job that would have taken a quarter
of an hour with a power saw. That was what Lawrence had first intended
to use; now he was very glad that be had changed his mind. It seemed
most unlikely that he would have a quarter of an hour. How true that
was, he learned while he was still waiting for the foam to set. '~Me
fire's through into the cabint" yelled a voice from overhead. Lawrence
looked at his watch. For a moment it seemed as if the second hand was
motionless, but that was an illusion he had experienced all his life.
The watch had not Mopped; it was merely that Mime, as usual, was not
going at the speed he wished. Until this moment it had been passing too
swiftly, now, of course, it was crawling on leaden feet. The foam should
be rock-hard in another thirty seconds. Far better to leave it a little
longer than to risk shooting too soon, while it was still plastic. He
started to climb the rope ladder, without haste, trailing the thin
detonating wires behind him. FHS timing was perfect. When he had emerged
from the shaft, uncrimped the short circuit he had put for the sake of
safety at the end of the wires, and connected them to the exploder,
there were just ten seconds to go. "Tell them we're starting to count
down from ten," he said.

As Pat raced downhill to help the Commodore-though just what he could do
now, he had very little idea-he heard Sue calling in an unhurried voice:
"Miss. Morley, Mrs. Schuster, Mrs. Williams ..." How -ironic it was that
Miss. Morley would once again be the first, this time by virtue of
alphabetical accident. She could hardly grumble about the treatment she
was getting now. And then a second. and much grimtner thought Bashed
through Pat's mind. Suppose Mrs. Schuster got stuck in the tunnel and
blocked the exit Well, they could hardly leave her   A Fall of Moondust
207

until last. No, sbem go up all right; she bad been a deciding factor in
the tube's design, and since then she had lost several kilos. At first
glance, the outer door of the toilet still seemed to be holding. Indeed,
the only sign that anything had happened was a slight wisp of smoke
curling past the hinges. For a moment Pat felt a surge of relief; why,
it might take the fire half an hour to burn through the double thickness
of Fibersla s, and long before thatsomething was tickling his bare feet.
He had moved automatically aside before his conscious mind said, "What's
that?" He looked down. 11ough his eyes were now accustomed to the dim
emergency lighting, it was some time before he realized that a ghostly
gmy tide was pouring beneath that barricaded door-and that the panels
were already bulging inward under the pressure of tons of dust. It could
be only a matter of minutes before they collapsed; even if they held, it
might make little difference. That silent, sinister tide had risen above
his ankles even while he was standing here. Pat did not attempt to move,
or to speak to the Commodore, who was standing equally motionless a few
centimeters away. For the first time in his life---and now, it might weu
be, for the last-he felt an emotion of sheer, overwhelming hate. In that
moment, as its Milian dry and delicate feelers brushed against his bare
legs, it seemed to Pat that the Sea of Tbirst was a conscious, malignant
entity that had been playing with them like a cat with a mouse. Every
time, he told himself, we thought we were getting the situation under
control, it was preparing a new surprise. We were always one move
behind, and now it is tired of its little game; we no longer amuse it.
Perhaps Radley was right, after all. The loud-speaker dangling from -the
air pipe roused him from his fatalistic reverie.

"We're readyl" it shouted. "Crowd at the end of the bus and cover your
faces. III count down from ten. fi.nn." . I

We're already at the end of the bus, thought Pat. We don't need all that
time. We may not even have it. "Nim.pt '111 bet it doesn't work, anyway.
The Sea won't let it, if It thinks we have a chance of getting out.
-"Exow." A pity, though, after all this efforl A lot of people have 
208  Arthur C. Clarke

half killed themselves trying to help us. They deserved better luck.
$'SEVEN." That's supposed to be a lucky number, isn't it? Perhaps we may
make it, after all. Some of us.

Ut's pretend. It won't do much harm now. Suppose it takes--oh, fifteen
seconds to get THROUGH161FIVE.99 And, of course, to let down the ladder
again; they probably rolled that up for safety4.Fotm .99 And assuming
that someone goes out every three seconds-no, let's make it five to be
on the safe SIDE41111113WE.91 That will be twenty-two times five, which
is one thousand and-no, that's ridiculous; I've forgotten how to do
simple arithmeticivirwo .99

Say one hundred and something seconds, which must be the best part of
two minutes, and that's still plenty of time for those lox tanks to blow
us all to kingdom come-- 66 ONE!$

ONEI And I haven't even covered my face; maybe I should lie down even if
I have to swallow this filthy stinking dustthere was a sudden, sharp
crack and a brief puff of air; that was all. It was disappointingly
anticlimactic, but the explosives experts had known their job, as is
highly desirable thit explosives experts should. The energy of the
charge had been precisely calculated and focused; there was barely
enough left over to ripple the dust that now covered almost half the
floor space of the cabin. Time seemed to be frozen; for an age, nothing
happened. Then there was a slow and beautiful miracle, breath-taking
because it was so unexpected, yet so obvious if one had stopped to think
about it. I A ring of brilliant white light appeared among the crimson
shadows of the ceiling. It grew steadily thicker and brighter-then,
quite suddenly, expanded into a complete and perfect circle as the
section of the roof fell away. The light pouring down was.only that of a
single glow tube twenty meters above, but to eyes that had seen nothing
but dim redness for hours, it was more glorious than any sunrise.   A
Fall of Moondust  209

The ladder came through almost as soon as the circle of roofing hit the
floor. Miss. Morley, poised like a sprinter, was gone in a flash. When
Mrs. Schuster followed-a little more slowly, but still at a speed of
which no one could complain-it was like an eclipse. Only a few stray
beams of light now filtered down that radiant road to safety. It was
dark ag" as if, after that brief glimpse of dawn, the night had returned
with redoubled gloom. Now the men were starting to go--Baldur first,
probably blessing his position in the alphabet. There were only a dozen
left in the cabin when the barricaded door finally ripped from its
hinges, and the pent-up avalanche burst forth. The first wave of dust
caught Pat while he was halfway up the slope of the cabin. Light and
impalpable though it was, it slowed his movements until it seemed that
he was struggling to wade through glue. It was fortunate that the moist
and heavy air had robbed it of some of its power, for otherwise it would
have filled the cabin with choking clouds. Pat sneezed and coughed and
was partly blinded, but he could still breathe. In the foggy gloom be
could hear Sue counting--."Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
nineteen--2' as she marshaled the passengers to safety. He had intended
her to go with the other women, but she was still down here, shepherding
her charges. Even as he struggled against the cloying quicksand that had
now risen almost to his waist, he felt for Sue a love so great that it
seemed to burst his heart. Now he had no possible doubt. Real love was a
perfect balance of desire and tenderness. The first had been there for a
long time, and now the second had come in full measure. "Twenty-that's
you, Commodore-quicklyl"

"Like hell it is, Sue," said the Commodore. "Up you go." Pat could not
see what happened-he was still partly blind. ed by the dust and the
darkness-but he guessed that Hansteen must have literally thrown Sue
through the roof. Neither his age nor his years in space had yet robbed
him of his Earth-born strength.

"Are you there, Patt' he called. "I'm on the ladder."

"Don't wait for me-I'm coming." That was easier said than done. It felt
as if a million soft yet determined fingers were clutching at him,
pulling him back into the rising flood. He gripped one of the seat 210
Arthur C. Clarke

backs--now almost hidden beneath the dust-and pulled himself toward the
beckoning light. Something whipped against his face; instinctively, he
reached out to push it aside, then realized that it was the end of the
rope ladder. He hauled upon it with all his might, and slowly,
reluctantly, the Sea of Thirst relaxed its grip upon him. Before he
entered the shaft, he had one last glimpse of the cabin. The whole of
the rear was now submerged by that crawling tide of gray; it seemed
unnatural, and doubly sinister, that it rose in such a geometrically
perfect plane, without a single ripple to furrow its surface. A meter
away-this was something Pat knew he would remember all his life, though
he could not imagine why-a solitary paper cup was floating sedately on
the rising tide, like a toy boat upon a peaceful lake. In a few minutes
it would reach the ceiling and be overwhelmed, but for the moment it was
still bravely defying the dust. And so were the emergency lights; they
would continue to bum for days, even when each one was encapsulated in
utter darkness. Now the dim-lit shaft was around him. He was climbing as
quickly as his muscles would permit, but he could not overtake the
Commodore. There was a sudden flood of light from above as Hansteen
cleared the mouth of the shaft, and involuntarily Pat looked downward to
protect his eyes from the glare. The dust was already rising swiftly
behind him, still unrippled, still smooth and placid-and inexorable.
Then he was straddling the low mouth of the caisson, in the center of a
fantastically overcrowded igloo. Ail around him, in various stages of
exhaustion and dishevelment, were his fellow passengers; helping them
were four space-suited figures and one man without a suit, whom he
assumed was Chief Engineer Lawrence. How strange it was to see a new
face, after all these days.

"Is everyone out?" Lawrence asked anxiously.

"Yes," said Pat. "I'm the last man." Then he added, "I hope,- for he
realized that in the darkness and confusion someone might have been left
behind. Suppose Radley had decided not to face the music back in New
Zealand ... No-he was here with the rest of them. Pat was just starting
to do a count of heads when the plastic floor gave a sudden jump-and out
of the open well shot a perfect smoke   A Fall of Moondust  211 '

ring of dust. It hit the ceiling, rebounded, and disintegrated before
anyone could move."

"What the devil was thatr said Lawrence.

"Our lox tank," answered Pat. "Good old bus --- she lasted just long
enough." And then, to his helpless horror, the skipper of Selene burst
into tears.  Chapter 31

"I still don!t think those flap are a good idea," said Pat as the
cruiser pulled away from Port Roris. "They look so phony, when you know
they're in vacuum." Yet he had to admit that the illusion was excellent,
for the Enes of pennants draped around the Embarkation Building were
stirring and fluttering in a nonexistent breeze. It was all done by
springs and electric motors, and would be very confusing to the viewers
back on Earth. This was a big day for Port Roris, and indeed for the
whole Moon. He wished that Sue could be here, but she was hardly in
proper shape for the trip. Very literally; as she had remarked when he
kissed her good-by that morning: "I don't see how women could ever have
had babies on Earth. Fancy carrying all this weight around, in six times
our gravity." Pat turned his mind away from his impending family, and
pushed Selene 11 up to full speed. From the cabin behind him came the

"Ohs" and

"Ah!s" of the thirty-two passengers, as the gray parabolas of dust
soared against the sun like monochrome rainbows. This maiden voyage was
in daylight; the travelers would miss the Sea's magical phosphorescence,
the night ride up the canyon to Crater Lake, the green glories of the
motionless Earth. But the novelty and excitement of the journey were the
main attractions. Thanks to her ill-fated predecessor, Selene 11 was one
of the best-known vehicles in the solar system. It was proof of the old
saying that there Is no such thing as bad publicity. Now that the
advance bookings were coming in, the Tourist Commissioner was very glad
that he had taken his courage in both hands and insisted on more
passenger space. At first he had had to fight to get a new Selene at
all. "Once bitten, twice shy," the Chief Administrator had said, and had
capitulated only when Father Ferraro and the 212   A Fall of Moondust
213

(jeophysics Division had proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Sea
would not stir again for another million years.

"Hold her on that course," said Pat to his copilot. "I'll go back and
talk to the customers." He was still young enough, and vain enough, to
savor the admiring glances as he walked back into the passenger cabin.
Everyone aboard would have read of him or seen him on TV; in fact, the
very presence of these people here was an implicit vote of confidence.
Pat knew well enough that others shared the credit, but he had no false
modesty about the role he had played during the last hours of Selene I.
His most valued possession was the little golden model of the cruiser
that had been a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. Harris

"Fir all on the last voyage, in sincere appreciation." That was the only
testimonial that counted, and he desired no other. He had walked halfway
down the cabin, exchanging a few words with a passenger here and there,
when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

"Hello, Captain," said an unforgotten voice. "You seem surprised to see
me." Pat made a quick recovery and Bashed his most dazzling official
smile. "it's certainly an unexpected pleasure, Miss. Morley. I had no
idea you were on the Moon."

"It's rather a surprise to me. I owe it to the story I wrote about
Selene L rm covering this trip for Life Interplanetary."

"I only hope," said Pat, "that it will be a little less exciting than
last time. By the way, are you in touch with any Of the others? Doctor
Mckenzie and the Schusters wrote a few weeks ago, but rve often wondered
what happened to poor little Radley after Harding marched him off."
Nothing-except that he lost his job. Universal Travel Cards decided that
if they prosecuted, everyone would sympathize with Radley, and it would
also give other people the same idea. He makes a living, I believe,
lecturing to his fellow cultists about. "What I Found on the Moon.' And
III make you a prediction, Captain Harri&" "%Ut's that?"

"Some day, he'll get back to the Moon." 1"I rather hope he does. I never
did discover just what he expected to find in thw Mare Crisium." They
both laughed. Then Miss. Morley said: "I hear you're giving up this
job." Pat looked slightly embumssed.  214  Arthur C. Clarke

"Thafs true," he admitted. "Tm transferring to the Space Service. If I
can pass the tests." He was by no means sure that he could, yet he knew
that he had to make the effort. Driving a moon bus had been an
interesting and enjoyable job, but it was also a dead end-as both Sue
and the Commodore had now convinced him. And there was another reason.
He had often wondered how many other lives had been changed or diverted
when the Sea of Thirst had yawned beneath the stars. No one who had been
aboard Selene I could fail to be marked by the experience, in most cases
for the better. The fact that he was now having this friendly talk with
Miss. Morley was sufficient proof of that. It must also have had a
profound effect on the men who had been Involved in the rescue
effort---especially Doctor Lawson and Chief Engineer Lawrence. Pat had
seen Lawson many times, giving his irascible TV talks on scientific
subjects; he was grateful to the astronomer, but found it impossible to
like him. It seemed, however, that some millions of people did. As for
Lawrence, be was hard at work on his memoirs, provisionally entitled "A
Man about the Moonr-and wishing to God he'd never signed the contract.
Pat had already helped him on the Selene chapters, and Sue was reading
the typescript while waiting for the baby.

"If you'll excuse me," said Pat, remembering his duties as skipper, "I
must attend to the other passengers. But please look us up next time
you're in Clavius City."

"I will," promised Miss. Morley, slightly taken aback but obviously
somewhat pleased. Pat continued his progress to the rear of the cabin,
exchanging a greeting here, answering a question there. Then he reached
the air-lock galley and closed the door behind him--and was instantly
alone There was more room here than in Selene rs little air lock, but
the basic design was the same. No wonder that memories came flooding
back. That might have been the space suit whose oxygen he and Mckenzie
had shared while all the rest were sleeping; that could have been the
wall against which he had pressed his ear, and heard in the night the
whisper of the ascending dust. And this whole chamber, indeed, could
have been where he had first known Sue, in the literal and Biblical
sense.   A Fall of Moondust  215

There was one innovation in this new model-the small window in the outer
door. He pressed his face against it, and stared across the speeding
surface of the Sea. He was on the shadowed side of the cruiser, looking
away from the sun, into the dark night of space. And presently, as his
vision adjusted itself to that darkness, he could see the stars. Only
the brighter ones, for there was enough stray light to desensitize his
eyes, but there they wer&-and there also was Jupiter, most brilliant of
all the planets next to Venus. Soon he would be out there, far from his
native world. The thought exhilarated and terrified him, but he knew he
had to go. He loved the Moon, but it had tried to kill him: never again
could he be wholly at ease out uponits open surface. Though deep space
was still more hostile and unforgiving, as yet it had not declared war
upon him. With his own world, from now on, there could never be more
than an armed neutrality. The door of the cabin opened, and the
stewardess entered with a tray of empty cups. Pat turned away from the
window, and from the stars. The next time he saw them, they would be a
million times brighter. He smiled at the neatly uniformed girl, and
waved his hand around the little galley. "This is all yours, Miss.
Johnson," he said. "Look after it well." Then he walked back to the
controls to take Selene 11 on his last voyage, and her maiden one,
across the Sea of Thirst.

