Rocket to Luna полностью

There were no emotions visible through the darkened face plates of the men’s helmets. They stood about stiffly, as if they were uncomfortable in these strange surroundings. Ted had no way of knowing what the other men were feeling. He could only guess.

Forbes: the dream realized. Elation and disappointment. Elation because the dream was realized. And disappointment because the unconscious Merola was not here to share it.

Dr. Gehardt: the scientific puzzle. Craters to he investigated, rocks to be weighed and tested, minerals to be discovered. A new world of new experiences.

Dr. Phelps: the challenge. A careful analysis of physical stamina as pitted against this land of violently opposite temperatures and unfriendly terrain. The human machine against nature. And he was the mechanic who kept the machine running.

And Ted?

There was no guesswork there. No, he knew exactly what he was feeling. It was a mixture of awe and pride, of humbleness and pulsing excitement, of joy and sadness. It was all those things mixed into a crazy ball that throbbed in his throat.

“Let’s look around,” Forbes said.

They started out across the floor of Mare Crisium, the mare that meant “sea” in Latin, named long ago when scientists thought the darker areas on the Moon were actually seas. All of the maria had been given fanciful Latin names, and Ted thought of them briefly as they picked their way over the jagged, razor-sharp rocks underfoot.

Mare Nectaris: the Sea of Nectar.

Mare Serenitatis: the Sea of Tranquillity.

Mare Nubium: the Sea of Clouds.

Mare Imbrium: the Sea of Showers-and incidentally the sea that held their supplies at the moment.

He had learned the names of the thirty-odd gray areas during astronomy classes as the Academy, and he marveled at his memory of them now.

Mare Crisium. That’s where they were now. The Sea of Crises. It had been aptly named, Ted thought. A thousand miles from their supplies, they were indeed facing a crisis. The Moon had chosen a fitting background.

He turned his head within his helmet as he walked, breathing in the oxygen that flowed from the tank strapped to his back.

He wondered exactly how cold it was outside. Probably somewhere down around 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Despite the chemical sprayed on the inside of his face plate, despite the heat circulating throughout the suit, the plate was beginning to frost up around the edges.

He was suddenly thankful for the protection of the suit. He shivered involuntarily, picturing himself out on the surface of the Moon without a space suit. He almost stumbled over a sharp rock, righted himself quickly, and kept his eyes on the ground as he walked.

The floor of the mare was covered with a dark gray pumice that stirred lazily as he pushed his heavy boots through it. It did not linger long above the ground. It was not lifted on gusts of wind because there was no wind. It was not held aloft in the air because there was no air. It drifted back as soon as they passed through it, silently, effortlessly.

A huge, barren, desolate wasteland seemed to spread around them endlessly.

That, and the silence. Almost a physical force, almost a part of the Moon, as much a part of the Moon as the pumice underfoot, the jagged, pointed rocks, the craters.

They walked on in silence, and then they seemed to stop as if a signal had been given. They stared around them, overwhelmed by the frigid silence. It was as if they had stumbled into a crypt, a dust-covered crypt as old as the universe, a crypt that defied invasion. There was a sense of timelessness here, an attitude of quiet resolution, as if the Moon had taken a solid stand and would not be budged from it.

And there was a feeling of changelessness, something that stirred in the silence to whisper, “I am now what I have ever been.”

The stillness was unnatural and eerie, and it sent a shiver of apprehension up Ted’s spine. He stared off to the distant jagged peaks that rose like splintered crowns beyond the horizon, crowns set with the brilliant stars as jewels.

To the people back on Earth, the Moon was a slice of lemon in the sky, a warm, pleasant-looking oval, a boy-and-girl moon, a moon for an autumn night with falling leaves.