Rocket to Luna полностью

Ted stood by the control panel, watching the Moon disappear from the forward radar screen. He flicked on the rear radar, then waited. The Moon shoved its way across the screen, still distant, yet ever closer. In the forward radar, Earth appeared, blue against the blackness, large. Ted closed a knife switch, and the engines swallowed their own roar until there was only silence again and the harsh breathing of the men.

“Does that do it?” Forbes asked. There was bitterness in his voice, but there was concern too.

“I think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“When will we know?” Dr. Gehardt asked.

“When we actually come down,” Ted said. “We’ll start braking when we get a little closer to the Moon.”

“How close?” Forbes asked.

“I figure we should start braking when the Moon is about two hundred miles below us.”

“What…”

“It’s not so risky as it sounds, sir,” Ted said.

“Not risky? Traveling at something like 5,000 miles an hour?”

“If we can produce a deceleration of one gravity with our rockets-and I know we can-we’ll be able to check our fall in about four minutes. That should bring us down to the surface.”

“Let the boy do it his way,” Dr. Phelps said.

“Sure,” Forbes said sarcastically. “It’s only our necks.”

In the radar screen the Moon grew larger. The rocket charged through space like a knight in silver armor. On the instrument panel, the electronic impulses being sent to the Moon’s surface bounced back with blinding rapidity, recording the distances. A thousand miles. Five hundred miles. Four hundred miles. Three hundred miles.

“Better take to the couches,” Ted said.

“Are we ready to land?”

“Yes. Almost.”

“Are we going to come down near the supplies?”

“I… I think so.”

He eyed the radar screen again, the Moon completely filling it now. The men shuffled to the couches, removed their sandals, and strapped themselves in. Ted climbed into his own couch, swinging the portable control panel into place. His eyes never left the instruments as his finger hovered over the button that would release the fury of the engines once more. The range marker dropped to two-fifty, two-forty, two-thirty…

The rocket fell toward the Moon, its blasting tubes pointing toward the surface, its nose turned away from the satellite. The open ends of the tubes were blackened and scorched-dead holes punched in a silver frame.

And suddenly they belched fire, and the ship seemed to tremble with the sudden thrust. A livid tail of yellow lashed at the sky, ripping at the blackness.

The ship shuddered, swallowing its tail as it plunged downward.

Together, like two wrestlers, the rocket and the Moon reached for each other.

It was all wrong. Somehow, it felt all wrong, like running for a pop fly when you’re certain you’re going to miss it. Ted felt just that way. He watched the surface of the Moon expand in the radar screen, and he knew with sickening insight that he had missed the supply dump.

The Moon clung to the sky like a luminous, yellow egg, and the rocket moved swiftly toward the slender slice of darkness on its Western rim.

Forbes looked up at the radar, then snapped his eyes to Ted. “You’re way off, Baker,” he said tersely. Ted said nothing. He stared at the radar and licked his lips. The thunder of the engines filled the rocket as the ship descended rapidly, its speed diminishing as the engines decelerated by blasting.

“Don’t just sit there!” Forbes shouted. “Do something. You’re bringing her down in the wrong spot.” Ted gulped hard. “There’s nothing I can do, sir.”

“What do you mean there’s…”

“Let him alone,” Dr. Phelps snapped. “Can’t you see he’s got his hands full?”

Forbes retreated into a gloomy silence. The men’s faces all turned to the radar screen and the growing picture of the Moon.

“Brace yourselves,” Ted said.

The screen was full now, brimming with the Moon’s light. The ship descended like a fast-moving elevator, its jet trail licking at the surface below.

“A few more seconds,” Ted said.

The ground came up suddenly, pitted, pockmarked. It filled the screen completely, blotting out the sky.

“This is it!” Ted shouted.