The rocket raced through space, a silver ship biting at the canopy of the sky. The blackness was dense, an almost tangible thing that spread around the ship like the heavy folds of a cloak. There was no sound. The blackness was a silent thing, immeasurable, infinite.
Only the stars interrupted the monotony of endless darkness.
Only the stars-and the cold Moon hanging against the ebony sky ahead.
There wasn’t much time.
There wasn’t much time. Hardly enough time, Ted thought. Even with Forbes grudgingly calling off the figures and going over the controls with him, he felt the pressure of time against him. He studied the controls with the patient care of a mother hen coddling her brood. He checked each instrument, comparing the figures with the theoretical ones the Space Station had supplied. He studied every button, every lever, every switch. And periodically he would glance up at the radar screen as the Moon grew larger and larger.
The Moon waited. The Moon had all the time in the world. There was no rush, no rush at all. Its crags and craters bleakly poked at the sky, oblivious of the speeding rocket, oblivious of the sweating, anxious men within that rocket. It waited.
The map was clear, and the area was plainly marked. If he worked everything correctly, they would come down within fifty yards of the supply dump. They would come down gently, easing toward the surface of the Moon on their stern jets, sitting down like a cat on a velvet pillow. If they came down correctly. There was the strong possibility that they would not come down correctly. And as Ted studied the map, he remembered that an unhindered fall to the surface of the Moon would crash the rocket at a speed of more than 5,000 miles per hour.
There wouldn’t be much left to pick up.
The rocket hurried to reach the embrace of the Moon. It ate space hungrily, swallowing the blackness, devouring the miles with a ravenous appetite. Its speed had been slowing, but that would soon change. When it reached a spot 24,000 miles from the Moon, the gravitational fields of Earth and its satellite would balance exactly. After that, the rocket would build up speed again, falling faster and faster, falling toward the uncompromising surface of the Moon. The rocket hurried toward its rendezvous.
Ted worked furiously with pencil and paper, referring constantly to the instruments that measured their speed and distance from the Moon. He would have to start turnover soon. With time to accomplish this first step in the landing, the task would not be so difficult.
Tremulously, he told the men what he intended doing.
“It’s in your hands,” Dr. Phelps said.
“Do as you see fit,” Dr. Gehardt said, nodding his bald head.
Forbes said nothing. He crouched beside Merola, studying the captain’s pale features.
The buttons were pushed and the circuits closed. The hum of the engines politely intruded into the silence of space. At the ship’s center of gravity, the flywheel began to rotate, slowly at first, and then increasing in speed. The port rockets spit yellow fire into the night, and the ship turned slowly, like a lethargic grub on a vast, black leaf.
Its nose pointed back over the miles it had covered, and its stern jets came around toward the face of the Moon, slowly, slowly.
