Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (67 page)

The big vehicle was really a sort of mobile hotel in which a couple of dozen people could live comfortably for a week or more. It was about forty feet long and mounted on two sets of caterpillar tractors, operated by powerful electric motors. The driver had a little raised cabin at the front, and the passenger compartment was fitted with comfortable seats that became bunks at night. At the back was a kitchen, storeroom, and even a tiny shower-bath.

Daphne looked around to see who her fellow passengers were. Besides her own family there were ten other travellers, most of them – like Norman – scientists going to relieve the staff at Number Two Base. She knew them all by sight, if not by name, so it looked as if there would be plenty of company for the trip.

The bus was now rolling briskly across the crater floor at about forty miles an hour, heading due north. It was easy to make good speed here as the ground was quite level and any obstacles had been bulldozed out of the way when the rough track they were following was made. Daphne hoped that there would soon be a change of scenery; it would get rather dull if it was like this all the way.

Her wish was quickly granted. Far ahead, a line of jagged peaks had now become visible on the horizon, and minute by minute they climbed higher into the sky. At first, because of the steep curvature of the Moon’s surface, it seemed that they were approaching nothing more than a modest range of hills, but presently Daphne saw that ahead of them lay a mountain wall several miles in height.

She looked in vain for any pass or valley through which they could penetrate – and then, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realised that they were attempting nothing less than a direct frontal assault on that titanic barrier.

Ahead of them the ground tilted abruptly in a slope as steep as the roof of a house. There was a sudden deepening in the vibration of the motors, and then, scarcely checking its speed, the great bus charged up the apparently endless, rock-strewn escarpment that seemed to stretch ahead of them all the way to the stars. Daphne gave a little cry of fright as the change of level thrust her back in the seat, and Mrs Martin also looked none too happy as she turned anxious eyes on her husband.

Professor Martin smiled back at his family with a mischievous twinkle. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s perfectly safe – another advantage of our low gravity. Just sit back and enjoy the view!’

It was worth enjoying. Soon they could see for miles, far back across the great plain over which they had been travelling. As more and more of the crater wall came into view, Daphne saw that it was built up in a series of vast terraces, the innermost of which they had now nearly surmounted.

Presently they reached the crest, and turned left along it instead of descending into the valley ahead.

It took them nearly two hours to reach the outer rim of the crater – two hours of doubling back and forth along great valleys, of exhilarating and terrifying charges up those impossible slopes. At last the whole of the walled plain lay spread out behind them, while ahead was range after range of broken hills. They could travel more quickly now, for the downward slopes were much less steep than those inside the crater, as was usually the case on the Moon. Even so, it was another two hours before they had finished the descent and reached open country again.

One gets used to anything in time, even to driving across the Moon. At last, the featureless landscape that now flowed uneventfully past lulled Daphne into sleep. She operated the lever that turned her chair into a couch and settled down for the night.

She woke once, hours later, when the tilt of the floor told her that the bus was climbing again. It was quite dark; the blinds had been drawn to keep out the sunlight still blazing from the velvet sky above. Everyone was asleep, and Daphne was not long in rejoining them.

The next time she woke the blinds were up, the sunlight was shining into the cabin, and there was a pleasant smell of cooking coming from the little galley. The bus was moving rather slowly along the crest of a low range of hills, and Daphne was surprised to see that all the other passengers were clustered around the observation windows at the rear.

She went over to the window and looked back across the miles of land through which they had travelled during the night. When she had seen it last, Earth had been hanging low in the southern sky – but where was it now? Only the silver tip of its great crescent still showed above the horizon; while she had been sleeping, it had been dropping lower and lower in the sky.

They were passing over the rim of the Moon, into the mysterious, hidden land where the light of Earth had never shone – the land that, before the coming of the rocket, no human eyes had ever seen.

Millions of years ago, the lava welling up from the secret heart of the Moon had frozen and congealed to form this great, wrinkled plain. In all that time, nothing had ever moved upon its surface; not even the faintest breath of wind had ever stirred the thin layer of meteor dust that, through the ages, had drifted down from the stars.

But there was movement now. Glittering in the sunlight like some strange, armoured insect, the powerful motor-vehicle was racing swiftly towards its goal – the Second Lunar Base, which had been built five years before as headquarters for the exploration of the Moon’s hidden hemisphere. Unlike the Observatory, Base Two was not underground, and when Daphne first caught sight of its buildings they reminded her irresistibly of Eskimo igloos.

They were, so Norman told her, simply plastic domes blown up like balloons and painted silver to conserve heat. Each had its private airlock, and was linked to its neighbour by a short connecting tube. There was no sign of life, but a pressurised tractor – a small edition of the machine in which Daphne was riding – was joined to one of the domes by a flexible coupling rather like a great hose-pipe, wide enough for men to walk through.

‘That’s Joe Hargreaves’s tractor,’ said Norman. ‘He’d just started on a thousand mile circuit before I left. I wonder if he’s found anything interesting.’

‘What was he looking for?’

Norman grinned. ‘I don’t suppose it sounds very exciting, but we’re trying to make an accurate geological map of the Moon, showing where all its mineral deposits are – particularly things like uranium, of course. So we send these tractors all over the place, drilling holes and collecting samples. But it’s going to be centuries before the job’s finished.’

It certain wasn’t as glamorous as the astronomers’ work, Daphne decided, but she realised that it was just as important. And Norman seemed to find it interesting enough, for he was still talking about magnetic surveys and other mysteries of his trade when their bus was coupled up to one of the domes and they walked through the airlock. The flexible connection didn’t fit very well and there was a rather frightening hiss of escaping air, but as no one seemed to worry, Daphne supposed it was all right.

They found themselves beneath a large dome about fifty feet across. The level rock floor was littered with packing cases, pieces of machinery, and all the miscellaneous stores needed for life on this inhospitable world. However, there was not a single human being in sight.

Professor Martin looked a trifle annoyed. ‘Where is everyone?’ he said to the driver. ‘You radioed that we were coming, didn’t you?’

‘They must all be busy in one of the other domes, I suppose, but it’s a bit odd.’

At that moment a small, grey-haired man came bustling breathlessly into the chamber and hurried up to Professor Martin.

‘Sorry we weren’t ready to meet you, Professor,’ he gasped, ‘but something terrific has just happened. Come and see what we’ve found.’

‘That’s Dr Anstey,’ Norman whispered to Daphne. ‘He’s in charge here. A nice chap, but always going off the deep end about something. Let’s see what it is this time.’

They followed the excited little scientist through one of the connecting corridors into the next dome. It was packed with men who looked around as they approached, then cleared a way for Professor Martin. As she followed her father into the centre of the room, Daphne saw that they were approaching a perfectly ordinary table on which was standing a far-from-ordinary object.

At first sight, it resembled a fragment of multicoloured coral from the bed of some Pacific lagoon. No – perhaps it was more like a piece of petrified cactus, strangely coloured with reds and greens and golds. It stood on a slab of rock in which it seemed to be rooted like a stalagmite – but it was easy to tell that it was no mere mineral formation.

It was Life – here on the barren, airless Moon, here on the world which for so long had been the symbol of empty desolation! As she stood in that quiet, yet crowded, room, Daphne knew that she was present at one of the great moments in the history of lunar exploration.

Presently Professor Martin broke the silence. He turned to a grimy, unshaven man who, Daphne guessed, was the leader of the party that had just returned.

‘Where did you find it, Hargreaves?’ he asked.

‘About 60 North, 155 West – just where the Ocean of Eternity joins the Lake of Dreams. There’s a valley about five miles long and a couple of miles wide, and it’s full of these things, acres and acres of them, all the colours of the rainbow. They’re all sizes from a few inches high up to about twenty feet.’

Professor Martin leaned forward and gingerly touched the enigma standing motionless on the table-top.

‘It feels just like rock,’ he said, and there was disappointment in his voice. ‘We’re a few million years too late – it’s fossilised.’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Hargreaves, shaking his head vigorously. ‘I can’t prove it, but when I was in that valley I somehow knew that these – plants, or whatever you can call them – are alive and still growing. Maybe they grow so slowly that it takes them thousands of years to get this big. They’re like nothing we’ve got on Earth, but I’m sure they’re alive.’

‘Perhaps you’re right; that’s a problem for the biologists to work out. Anyway, congratulations – this is going to make you immortal, because when they give this thing a name they’re sure to call it after you!’

‘Just Joe’s luck,’ said Norman in disgust. ‘The only excitement
I
ever get on these trips is when my tractor breaks down!’

This discovery had completely overshadowed the visit of Professor Martin and his family, which would otherwise have been quite an important event in the life of the little community. But presently the normal routine was resumed, and the scientists drifted back to their work, with many backward glances at the silent, multicoloured entity that had so suddenly changed all their preconceived ideas about the Moon. They were no longer the only living creatures on its surface, and perhaps – who knows? – there were other and still stranger beings in the hidden places of this mysterious world.

Rather belatedly, Professor Martin introduced his family to Dr Anstey, who still seemed in a somewhat highly-strung condition.

‘Very pleased to meet you,’ he said absentmindedly. ‘How long will you be staying here?’

‘Until the transport goes back, the day after tomorrow,’ replied Professor Martin.

Dr Anstey suddenly seemed to come out of his trance and remembered his duty as a host. He smiled apologetically at Mrs Martin.

‘I’m afraid you’ll find the quarters a little cramped, but we’ve done our best. This is the first time we’ve had visitors here on the back of the Moon!’

*

Mrs Martin was now becoming accustomed to unusual residences, and was not in the least surprised to find herself ushered into a tiny, first-floor room tucked under the curve of the dome. Set in the outer wall was a small porthole through which one could look to the south across a wide plain, broken at intervals by low, razor-backed hills.

With a sigh of relief, Mrs Martin sank into one of the pneumatic armchairs. It was a little disturbing to think that not only was all the furniture kept inflated by air-pressure, but so also was the very building itself. What would happen if there was a puncture? Presumably the whole place would collapse like a pricked balloon as the air rushed out into space. Oh, well, it was no use worrying …

Perhaps Daphne was engrossed in similar thoughts, for she walked to the curving wall, prodded it gently with her finger, and then, apparently reassured, settled down in the other chair.

Her mother wondered just what effect this trip was having on her. It was easy to tell with Michael; he was in his element and having the time of his life. But with Daphne one could never be quite sure. She seemed to be enjoying herself, yet she was very quiet and scarcely ever made any comments on the surprising things that were happening around her. Perhaps, like so many of her generation, she had learned to take the incredible for granted.

That, as it happened, was scarcely true. The things she had seen on the Moon – above all, her glimpses through the giant telescope of the sky’s countless wonders – were beginning to fire Daphne’s imagination. Now at last she understood that science was not merely an affair of dry equations and dull text-books, but had a poetry and a magic of its own. A new world had been opened up before her – it was a world she could enter if she wished.

She had never realised, until Professor Martin had mentioned it casually, how many well-known women astronomers there had been – right back to the most famous of them all, Caroline Herschel, who had helped her brother Sir William record his observations during the long winter nights, even when the ink was freezing in its well.