Ted expected Forbes to smile at the news. Instead, Forbes kept his eyes on the transmitter readings, apparently too occupied to allow Ted’s misfortune to disturb him. Ted sighed heavily. Hot water, the general had said.
“Hello, Forbes. Have you got a map there? Over.”
“Stand by, sir.” Forbes snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the drawers. Dr. Phelps quickly opened the drawer and pulled out a sheaf of maps. He brought these to Forbes, and the lieutenant spread them on the table before him. “Yes, sir, I’ve got a map. Over.”
“We tracked you all the way up, Forbes. Figured something was wrong when you began turnover ahead of schedule. Have you got a pencil? Over.”
“Yes, sir. Over.”
“All right, start marking. Your supplies are in Mare Imbrium, over on the Eastern half of the Moon. Three miles east of the crater Archimedes. Have you got that point?”
“Stand by, sir. Yes, yes, here it is. Over.”
“All right, mark it. Those are your supplies.”
“Roger. And where are we, sir?”
There was a long pause. The static crackled into the compartment as they waited for the general’s voice again.
“You’re not going to like this, Forbes. We tracked you as you came down, and we’re pretty sure this is the ship we’ve got in the screens now. At any rate, it’s in the area you were falling toward.”
“I see, sir. And where is that?”
“You’re in Mare Crisium.”
“Roger. Stand by, sir.” Forbes bent over the map studying it. He scratched his head, then, and picked up the microphone. “I can’t seem to locate that, sir.”
“Where are you looking, Forbes?”
“Well, quite a ways over to the West. I figure we crashed in darkness and…”
“How far over?”
“The area around Mare Serenitatis.”
“You’re not far enough over, Forbes. Keep going. You’re almost on the Western rim.”
“Stand by, sir.” Forbes consulted the map again, and then seemed to recoil from the microphone. “Did you say Mare Crisium, sir?”
“You’ve found it?”
“Yes, sir. But… but it’s… it’s quite a distance from…”
“You’re approximately one thousand miles from the supplies, Forbes. Mark your position in the center of Mare Crisium.”
Forbes’s hand moved to the map, and he scribbled something onto its surface.
“I’ve marked it, sir.”
“Have you got both positions marked?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It looks bad, doesn’t it?”
Forbes looked at the map, sighing heavily.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “It looks very bad.”
“I’m contacting Earth now, Forbes,” the general said. “I’m trying to see what we can do about getting more supplies to you. Stand by for radio contact in an hour. And keep your chin up.”
“Roger. Out.”
Forbes opened the knife switch, and the transmitter clicked off. Without the hum, it was suddenly very quiet in the cabin.
Forbes swung the swivel chair around and folded his hands in his lap. “Well,” he said, “you heard.”
“They’ll get supplies to us,” Dr. Gehardt said confidently.
“I’m not so sure.”
“It should be simple,” Dr. Phelps put in. “They wouldn’t need a crew. Just unmanned rockets like the ones that took the other supplies here.”
“Mm-m-m,” Forbes murmured. He held out the map. “Take a look at this.”
The men studied the map, and Forbes shook his head forlornly. “A thousand miles,” he said. “And he was probably giving it to us in round figures. It’s probably more than that.”
“Why worry about the distance?” Dr. Gehardt asked. “If they send up more supplies, we can forget about the others.”
“Sure.
“Is there a chance they won’t?”
“I don’t know. There must be some doubt or the Old Man wouldn’t have had to call Earth.”
“That’s true,” Dr. Phelps said.
Ted stood by the viewport, listening. He was filled with a deep sadness, a sadness that permeated every bone in his body. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that his motives had been purely unselfish, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that it had been he who had crashed the ship and tossed them into their present position. He wanted to go to Forbes and say, “Sir, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, more sorry than you can know. But I really tried my best, and I really did want to help and…”
No. No, he could never do that. In the first place, Forbes wouldn’t believe him for a moment. He couldn’t very well blame the lieutenant, although he felt Forbes’s judgment had been a trifle too hasty. It was something like condemning a man to be hanged before he’d been given a trial. Forbes had based his entire case on a batch of innocent questions Ted had asked.
He had started with the basic assumption that Ted willingly and wilfully considered taking Jack’s place on the Moon rocket. From there, his theory had snowballed with remarkable rapidity, until he further assumed that Ted had deliberately kayoed Jack and had come aboard in his place. After that, Forbes’s imagination had taken over completely, and there were no limits to the extent of his accusations. Why, Ted wouldn’t be surprised if Forbes secretly blamed him for Merola’s injury… as… as a ruse… a trick to give Ted a chance at landing the ship!