Lawrence did not have to wait for long. The sides of the box fell flat, revealing a tightly packed, convoluted mass of silvery fabric. It stirred and struggled like some living creature. Lawrence had once seen a moth emerging from the chrysalis, with its wings still 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 three 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 final 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 fittings 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 been designed with only centimeters to spare. But at last there was a radio call from inside the dome. “We’re open for business!” it said. “Come on in!”
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, he 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, embodied in a dozen blueprints and a terse sixpage 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 her passengers, Selene had made her last voyage.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
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 again. 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 those people—yes, even to Miss Morley, who was now as agreeable and considerate as her temperament would allow. The fact 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.
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 had been pumped down, to refill the almost empty tanks.
It was strange that Commodore 1-lansteen, 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 him worrying. 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. The 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 Auriga’s cabin set it dancing on the screen. For this reason, everyone aboard the ship was motionless, and all nonessential machinery had been switched off.
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 jib 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, “we’ve 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—we’ll start scooping out the dust. As soon as that’s done, we’ll have an open shaft, like a small well, right down to S
elene.
“That will be half the battle, but only half. Then we’ll 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 away!”
Slowly, the cylinder settled into the dust until its full fourmeter 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 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 Two!” 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 sake! 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 caisson 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 flash. 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 almost imperceptible slowness. But it was still moving; in a few minutes, with any luck at all, they would be knocking on the cruiser’s roof.
“Twelve meters down,” said Lawrence. “We’re 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 quickdrying 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.
“What’s 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. “Someone 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 are?” said the Commodore, quite calmly. “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 this is the first chance we’ve had to prove it. Still, I’d 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 TWENTY FIVE
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 dumped.
Over 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 flashing of the red warning light on the air purifier, synchronized with the howling of a radio klaxon across all the space-suit 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 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.
They’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 tho
ught 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 oxygen pipes were tearing loose. They were not sliding out smoothly, for the cruiser was going down stern 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 Pharaoh’s tomb—dryer than this, indeed, for it was a 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.