The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (40 page)

Sunday morning breakfast in the home of Sir Brampton Pasmore moved along its usual lazy routine. Sir Brampton read a favorite technical journal with his kippers; Lady Iris scanned the
Times Magazine
.

Lady Iris uttered an amused exclamation. “Here’s something in your field, my dear.” She read. “‘Does the Moon Have an Atmosphere? Strange Signs and Portents’.”

“Pooh,” scoffed Sir Brampton. “I marvel at the
Times
for publishing that yellow sensational balderdash. Expect that stuff from the Americans…”

Lady Iris knitted her brows. “They seem perfectly serious. They speak of meteor trails appearing.”

“Ridiculous,” said Sir Brampton, returning to his paper. “It hasn’t been ten years since the moon was extensively explored for minerals, before transmuters, of course. There certainly was no atmosphere then; why should there be now?”

Lady Iris shook her head doubtfully. “Couldn’t someone give the moon an atmosphere?”

“Impractical, my dear,” Sir Brampton murmured.

“I don’t see why.”

Sir Brampton laid aside his paper. “It’s a scientific matter, dear, that I’m not sure you’d understand.”

Lady Iris bridled sharply. “Are you by any chance suggesting—”

“No, naturally not,” Sir Brampton said hurriedly. “What I meant was…Oh, well, it’s a matter of escape velocity of a celestial body, and the molecular motion of gases. Lunar gravity is insufficiently powerful to retain an atmosphere, at least for any length of time: the molecules move at sufficient speed to escape into space. Hydrogen would whiff off at once. Oxygen and nitrogen—well, I believe they’d probably last longer, perhaps years, but eventually they’d escape. So you see, an atmosphere on the moon just isn’t practical.”

Lady Iris tapped her paper with a stubborn finger. “It says in the
Times
there’s an atmosphere. That means it’s there. The
Times
is never wrong. Why doesn’t somebody drop by and find out for sure?”

Sir Brampton sighed. “The moon doesn’t interest anyone any more, my dear. Martian ruins are the current excitement. The moon is uncomfortable and dangerous, there’s nothing to be learned, and now that transmutation supplies all our mineral wants, there’s no reason whatever to visit the moon…Besides, I understand that some crank with legal title discourages trespassing; he has a special patrol that turns back visitors.”

“Well, well, well,” breathed lovely Deborah Fowler Lambro to her husband Roger. “Remember Dover Spargill? Just look at this!”

She handed across the bulletin from the news-facsimile.

“Moon being readied for habitation, announces Dover Spargill, owner of the moon…”

Lady Iris looked at Sir Brampton with glowing eyes. “I told you so,” said she, and Sir Brampton crouched behind the
Report of the Royal Astrophysical Society
.

Thornton Bray walked back and forth, hands behind his back. Was it possible…No, of course not. And yet…Dover Spargill had been so innocent a sheep, so succulent for the plucking.

He reached for the visiphone, dialled his attorney. “Herman, remember when we first organized the Lunar Cooperative?”

“All of twenty-five years ago,” mused Herman Birch, a tall lemon-colored man with the flat-topped face of a falcon.

“There was an old duffer, dead now, who refused to sign up. He only held a few square miles, in Aristillus crater, I believe. When we sold Lunar Co-op to Spargill, that particular parcel was not included. I wonder what the status of that claim is now?”

Birch turned his head, spoke a few words to someone out of the range of vision, returned to Bray. “What do you make of this atmosphere talk?”

Bray curled his lips. “Eyewash. Where would it come from? Moon surface is a thirteenth of Earth surface; there’d be billions and billions of tons.”

“Spargill might be using transmuters.”

“Suppose he is? Do you have any conception of the size of a project like that? The moon’s a big place. The heaviest transmuter I know of has a capacity of a hundred tons a minute and that’s chicken feed.”

“He might have built special installations.”

“Where would he get the money? I know on reliable information that he was cleaned out when he took over Lunar Co-op…Just a minute, I’ll call the Applied Research Foundation and make some inquiries.”

He dialled rapidly, and a moment later was looking into a cautious round face. “Hello, Sam.”

Sam Abbott nodded. “What can I do for you, Bray?”

“I want a little confidential information, Sam.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Has Applied Research sold Dover Spargill any transmuters?”

Sam Abbott’s face crinkled in a sudden broad grin. “I’ll give you a straight answer, Bray: not a one. Not a single one.”

Bray blinked. “How do you account for the talk of an atmosphere on the moon?”

Abbott shrugged. “I don’t account for it; that’s not my job.”

Bray, muttering in irritation, returned to Herman Birch. Birch nodded a wise head. “That claim was open. I’ve just filed in your name.”

Bray clamped his heavy mouth. “Good. Now I’ve got a legal right to visit my claim. Rent me a fast boat…”

The radar alarm sounded eighty thousand miles out from the moon. The pilot threw down the switch. A harsh voice said, “You are approaching my property.”

Bray pulled himself to the speaker. “I’m going out to my own property, the Niobe claim in Aristillus Crater. If you interfere with me, I’ll call the Space Patrol.”

The voice made no answer; Bray visualized the frantic search through block maps and title deeds. Ten minutes passed.

A new voice said, “Aboard approaching boat: who is claimant to the Niobe claim?”

“Me. Thornton Bray.”

“Oh. Bray,” said the voice in a different tone. “This is Spargill. Why didn’t you say who you were? Drop on down to home camp.”

“Where are you?” inquired Bray cautiously.

“We’re in Hesiodus, at the south point of Mare Nubium—beside Pitatus. The old Goldenrod workings.”

The camp in Hesiodus Crater occupied a typical old mining compound: a big dome of plastic anchored into the rock by a web of cables which also served to contain the air-pressure from within. The pilot landed the boat and Bray, already clad in a space-suit, jumped out to the surface.

Three men approached; under the dome of the first Bray recognized the face of Dover Spargill.

Dover waved. “How are you, Bray? Nice of you to drop out…What’s all this about the Niobe claim?”

Bray explained. “And since the land was ownerless, I decided I had better snap it up.”

As he spoke he examined his surroundings. The lunar sky, which he remembered as black, was a deep hyacinth blue. “Looks like all the talk of a moon atmosphere is true.”

Dover nodded. “Oh yes…Come along over to the dome.” He led Bray across a flat of crushed pumice. A mile behind rose the walls of the crater, tall irregular spires. At the base of the walls Bray discerned a row of black cubes.

“What’s the pressure here now, Spargill?”

“Got her up to seven pounds.”

“Barometric? That is to say, against a mercury column?”

“Oh my no. A misleading statement. Seven pounds against a spring scale.”

Bray snorted delicately. “Tremendous waste of money, Spargill.”

“Do you really think so? I’m sorry to hear you say that; I rather hoped something useful might eventuate…Look there.” He pointed against the wall of the dome. “Geraniums. Growing outside on the moon. Never thought you’d see a sight like that in the old days, did you, Bray?”

“Mmmph. What good are geraniums? Monumental waste. As fast as you make atmosphere it’ll dissipate into space. Not enough gravity here.”

Dover closed the outer hatch on Bray and himself. They removed their suits, and Dover conducted Bray to the main lounge, where a dozen men and women sat reading, talking, playing cards, drinking beer.

“You’ve got quite a colony here,” said Bray in a mystified voice. “Do they work for nothing?”

Dover laughed shortly. “Of course not…This is only a small part of our operation. We’ve got units going at almost all the old mines…Have some coffee?”

Bray declined brusquely. “Exactly what are your plans, if I may ask?”

Dover leaned back in the chair. “It’s a long story, Bray. First, I hope you’ll let bygones be bygones. I suppose I fleeced you pretty thoroughly when I took Lunar Co-op away from you, eh?”

Bray said in a strangled voice, “You fleeced
me?
…Well, let it ride. I want to hear about this—” he jerked a thumb toward the sky “—this mad stunt of yours.”

Dover said soothingly, “It’s probably not so impractical as you think. Consider the future, Bray. Do you see what I see?

“Forests, meadows, grass-lands. Moon, the green planet! Trees five hundred feet tall! We’re filling craters with water right now. Moon, the world of a million lakes! In five more years we’ll have thirteen pounds pressure, and we’ll be living out-of-doors.”

“Waste, waste, waste,” intoned Bray. “You’ll never get a stable atmosphere.”

Dover scratched his head. “Well, of course I may be mistaken—”

“Sure you are,” said Bray bluffly. “I hate to see you making a fool of yourself, Dover. For old time’s sake, I’m willing to—”

“My theory,” explained Dover, “was that the composition of the atmosphere determined how fast it dissipated. Naturally we expect to make adjustments for a long time to come.”

“Well, of course—”

“But actually, we’re building a special kind of atmosphere, rather different from Earth’s.”

Bray’s nostrils flared in interest. “How so?”

“Well, in the first place, xenon replaces nitrogen. Specific gravity of 4.5, as against 1 for nitrogen. Then we’re using the heaviest possible isotopes for oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, and deuterium rather than hydrogen for our water. It all works out to a pretty dense atmosphere—physiologically identical to Earth air, but about three and a half times as dense. So our vapor loss into space will be minimized to almost nothing.”

Bray cracked his knuckles. Something must be wrong. Dover was saying, “We could easily make the atmosphere even denser, if we so desired—by substituting radon for the xenon.”

“Radon! My God—you’d fry!”

Dover smilingly shook his head. “Radon has many isotopes, not all significantly radioactive. On Earth we’re familiar only with the breakdown product of radium, thorium, actinium. But radon’s disadvantage is that it’s too heavy. A gust of wind would bowl a man off his feet, like hitting him with a sack of sawdust.”

“Hm…Interesting,” remarked Bray absently. Some means must be found to repair what he now recognized as an error in judgment: allowing Dover to become sole owner of the moon. Not quite sole owner; Bray, as a lunar property holder, was entitled to a certain advisory status. Reason, sweet reason, was the phrase.

He explored the ground cautiously. “What do you propose to do with all this property?” He winked slyly. “Sell it at a fancy figure?”

Dover made a deprecatory motion. “I suppose that an unprincipled man, by subdividing and selling, could easily become a multi-billionaire…Did you say something?”

“No,” said Bray, swallowing hard. “I just coughed.”

“But I have a different end in view. I want to see the moon become a garden suburb of Earth—a park, a residential area. Certainly I want no housing projects on the moon, no tourist hotels…”

“Naturally you’re using Applied Research transmuters?”

“Of course. Are there any other kind?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“These are special mammoth units built specially for this project. We’ve got two thousand in operation already. We push them under a mountain, bulldoze rock into the hoppers. Every week two more units go into operation; there’s a tremendous amount of material to transmute, and we’re on a fifteen-year schedule. That means that we’ve got to average three billion tons a day, for atmosphere alone; so far, we’re up to the mark.”

Bray grimaced, clenched his fist. Observing Dover’s questioning look, he blurted, “Sam Abbott at Applied Research is a damn liar. Said he never sold you any transmuters.”

“But that’s correct, we’re using them free, on a loan basis.”

“Free!”

Dover turned out his hands in a gesture of frankness. “That’s the only way I could undertake the project. Buying out Lunar Co-op took almost everything I had. But my father originally endowed the Foundation, and there was a certain sense of obligation. In a way, we’re partners in the deal.” He nodded toward the other occupants of the lounge. “All Foundation staff. They’re sinking the profits from producing the transmuters into the scheme; of course they’ll get it all back ten-fold.”

“But you still retain control?”

“All except the Niobe claim.” Dover laughed jovially. “You slipped one over on me there. I thought that I was sole owner, and now I fear that…Well, no matter.”

Bray cleared his throat. “As you say, we’re the sole owners, you and I. I imagine we should form some kind of supervisory board to protect our interests so to speak.”

Dover seemed surprised. “Do you think that such a formality is necessary? After all the Niobe claim—”