Destination Moon

"Isn't everybody?"

"That isn't all.. Call it a hunch, or anything you like. If we don't take off now, we never will-even if I had the dinero to test in the South Pacific. We've had more than our share of bad luck on this project-and I don't believe in luck."

"Meaning?"

"There are people who want this enterprise to fail. Some are crackpots; some are jealous. Others -- "

"Others," Styles finished for him, "don't like the United States getting space travel first any better than they liked us getting the atom bomb first."

"Check."

"So what do you want to guard against? A time bomb in the ship? Sabotage of the controls? Or the Federal marshal with a squad of soldiers to back him up?"

"I don't know!" -- Styles stared at nothing.

"Boss -- "

"Yeh?"

"Item: pretty soon you've got to admit publicly that it's a real takeoff, for you've got to evacuate this valley.

The sheriff and state police won't play games just for a drill."

"But -- "

"Item: by now it is after office hours on the east coast. You're fairly safe from the Commission until morning. Item: any sabotage will be done on the spur of the moment, provided it isn't already built into the ship."

"Too late to worry about anything built into the ship."

"Just the same, if I were you, I would go over her with a toothpick. Any last minute stuff will be done with a wrench, behind a control panel or such-what they used to call 'target of opportunity."

"Hard to stop."

"Not too hard. There isn't anything that can be done to that ship down at its base, right? Well, if my neck depended on that heap, I wouldn't let anybody up inside. it from now on, except those going along. Not anybody, not even if he carried a certificate of Simon-pure onehundred-percentism from the D.A.R. I'd watch what went in and I'd stow things with my own little pattypaws."

Barnes chewed his lip. "You're right. Herb-you just bought yourself a job."

"Such as?"

"Take over here." He explained what he bad been. doing. "As for the press, don't tip them off until you have to make arrangements for the road blocks and evacuation-maybe you can keep things wrapped up until around midnight. I'm going up into that -- ship and -- "

The telephone jangled; he picked it up. "Yes?" It was Bowles.

"Jim-come to the electronics shop."

"Trouble?"

"Plenty. Ward has run out on us."

"Oh, oh! I'll be right over." He slammed the phone and said, "Take over, Herb!"

"Wilco!"

Outside, he jumped in his car and swung around the circle to the electronics shops. He found Bowles and Corley in Ward's office. With them was Emmanuel Traub,, Ward's first assistant. "What happened?"

Corley answered, "Ward is in the hospital-acute appendicitis."

Bowles snorted. "Acute funk!"

"That's not fair! Ward wouldn't run out on me."

Barnes cut in. "It doesn't matter either way. The question is: what do we do now?"

Corley looked sick. "We can't take off."

"Stow that!" Barnes turned to Bowles. "Red, can you handle the electronics?"

"Hardly! I can turn the knobs on an ordinary twoway-but that ship is all electronics."

"I'm in the same fix-Doc, you could. Or couldn't you?"

"Uh, maybe-but I can't handle radar and power plant both."

"You could teach me to handle power plant and Red could pilot."

"Huh? I can't make a nucleonics technician out of you in something like a matter of hours."

Barnes seemed to feel the world pressing in on him. He shook off the feeling and turned to Traub. "Ma

"Me? I installed all of it; Mr. Ward didn't like to go up the Gantry crane. He is a nervous type guy."

Barnes looked at Corley. "Well?"

Corley fidgeted. "I don't know."

Bowles said suddenly, "Traub, where did you go to college?"

Traub looked hurt. "I got no fancy degree but I carry a civil service classification of senior electronics engineer-a P-5. I did three years in the Raytheon labs. I had my ham license since I was fifteen, and I was a master sergeant in the Signal Corps. If it makes with electrons, I savvy it."

Barnes said mildly, "The Admiral didn't mean any harm, Ma

Traub shifted -- his eyes from one *0 the other. "Mr. Barnes-this is no rehearsal? This is it?"

"This is it, Ma

Traub was breathing hard. "You gentlemen are asking me to go to the Moon with you? Tonight?"

Before Barnes could answer, Bowles put in:

"That's it, Ma

Traub swallowed hard. "Yes," he said.

"Yes?" Barnes echoed..

"I'll go."

Corley said hastily, "Traub, we don't want to rush you."

"Director, take a look at my job application. I put down 'Willing to travel."

III

The great ship was ringed with floodlights spaced inside the bull pen. It was still framed by the skeleton arch of the Gantry crane, but the temporary anti-radiation shield which had surrounded its lower part down to the jets was gone; instead there were pOsted the trefoil signs used to warn of radioactivity-although the level of radiation had not yet become dangerously high. --

But the power pile was unsealed and the ship was ready to go. Thirteen-fifteenths of its mass was water, ready to be flashed into incandescent steam by the atomic pile, to be thrown away at thirty thousand feet per second. --

High up in the ship was the control room and adjacent airlock. Below the air lock the permanent anti-radiation shield ran across the ship, separating the pressurized crew space from the tanks, the pumps, the pile itself, and auxiliary machinery. Above the control room, the nose of the craft was unpressurized cargo space. --

At its base triangular airfoils spread out like oversize fins-fins they would be as the ship blasted away; glider wings they would become when the ship returned to Earth with her tanks empty.

Jim Barnes was at the foot of the Gantry crane, giving last-minute orders. A telephone had been strung out to the crane; it rang and he turned to answer it.

"Mr. Barnes?"

"Yes, Herb."

"Sheriff's office reports road blocks in place and everybody out of the valley-it cost plenty cumshaw to clear the Idle Hour Guest Rancho, by the way."

"No matter."

"Everybody out, that is, but Pete the Hermit. He won't git."

"The old boy with the whiskers in that shack north of the gate?"

"The same. We finally told him the score, but it didn't faze him. He says he ain't never seen no ship take off for the Moon and he ain't pla

Barnes chuckled. "Can't blame him. Well, let him sign the release our own people sign. Tell him if he won't sign, the show won't take place."

"And if he doesn't sign?"

"Herb, I take off even if some damn fool is standing under the jets. But don't tell him."

"I got you. Now bow about the press?"

"Tell them now-but keep them off my neck. And even with releases they stay in the blockhouse."

"I'll have trouble with the fiewsreel and television people."

"Remote control or nothing. Herd 'em in,-- you go in last and lock the door behind you. They can string all the wires into the blockhouse they need, but nobody stays inside the area unsheltered."

"Mr. Barnes-do you really think the blast will be that dangerous?"

Barnes' reply was drowned out by the bull horn from the blockhouse: "Attention! The last bus is now loading at the north entrance to the shop circle!"

Presently Styles resumed:

"Another call-you better take it, boss. Trouble."