Anti-Grav Unlimited

sufferings. Whining about stomach ailments is not a good way to impress either an attractive member of the opposite sex or an old space pirate.

So about the only major problem was cramped muscles; you can’t just stop and step out to stretch when you’re hurtling through space. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

During the first few hours of our flight, Nikki was quite busy with an electronic astrolabe and a computer file which gave the correct coordinates that we needed to take. After a while she became convinced that the computer was doing a perfect job of flying us and only made an occasional sighting in for my peace of mind. (And I noticed that once she didn’t even bother to turn the astrolabe on, thus proving it was only being done for my benefit; talk about trying to soothe the pilot’s nerves… Nikki knew all the navigator tricks.) We orbited the Moon one time to allow the computer to adjust our speed and then located our first destination. Our whole trip took less than 24 hours—considerably less than the three days taken by conventional rocket flights to the moon.

Our computer dropped us quite close to the airless surface of the Moon; I tried not to scream as we dropped through space. We skimmed across the barren, pock-marked gray land whose lack of atmosphere made it hard to judge distances. After the computer made one last, stomach-wrenching adjustment and burped a warning in our helmets’ radios, we found ourselves hanging over the Copernicus Mining Base a little off the Equator of the Moon in the Carpathian Mountain range between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Imbrium, east of Kepler Crater.

It had happened. The computer had flown us flawlessly to our destination on the Moon.

“Well, you and Jake did a perfect job in calculating and programming our flight,” I announced needlessly.

Jake gave a grunt that a frog would have recognized as meaning “thanks.”

Nikki, a bit more conventional, spoke English, “It’s nice to have a new type of problem for a change. I’m afraid rocket-flight navigation made me a little rusty at figuring orbits. Ready to go down for a landing?”

“Yeah. Now or never, right? I hope I can do as well as you guys did in programming the computer.” I wiped my hands against my legs, even though the sweat remained on my palms thanks to the fact that they were wrapped in heavy space gloves. “Everyone ready?”

“Take her down, Captain,” Jake’s voice said in my helmet’s speaker.

I flipped the turn signal out of its hover position and we slowly fell downward. Though there was really nothing to worry about, it seemed a bit anti-climactic after the long, computerized trip to get to where we were going with a flip of a turn signal. Hardly first class. I decided to have Jake get us some flashing lights to wire into the van’s dashboard before we took anyone we really wanted to impress on a flight.

The mining base was dwarfed by the sheer size of the Copernicus crater. The one-sixth gravity of the Moon made for spectacular contrasts of heights with the scraggly, un-weathered crater walls jutting up unlike any mountain range on Earth. Because of the greater curvature of the Moon, the far side of the crater walls dropped almost out of sight as we neared the rough floor where a giant meteor had impacted on the Moon before mankind had even started chipping away at flint knives.

The rocket sled ramp soon came into sight and the artificial smoothness of man’s handiwork showed on the rock around it. The ramp stretched down toward the base which was nestled in the northern end of the crater. Though the sled had been designed to launch the metal ingots mined and processed on the Moon, Jake said that the base had been closed just before it had gotten ready for automated production. (And the question none of us could answer sprang up to puzzle my mind again. Why had the base been closed down? Earth needed the resources. The best guess among the three of us was that the powers-that-be on Earth just couldn’t make enough money at it. It was easier to let people starve on Earth, perhaps. Who knows? ) After an eternity, we reached the floor of the crater and I carefully steered the van to land on the smooth field built for supply rockets. It was nestled among the huge boulders that jutted from the lunar dust that had filtered in around them. Beside it was the small, solar-powered beacon that had allowed our computer to home in on the base.

A slight jolt marked the end of our descent. I looked over at Nikki. “We made it.”

I could barely see a smile on her face inside the mirrored bubble helmet, “Yes. We’re really here.”

Then it sank in, in the peanut gallery: “We’re here!” Jake yelled.

I jumped when he yelled and would have bumped my head if my seat belt hadn’t held me down. “Jake, let’s try not to rupture our eardrums again.”

“Sorry.”

“How about a little stroll?” Nikki asked unfastening her seat belt, soundlessly since there was no air in the van.

“Don’t mind if we do,” I unbuckled my harness and popped the door of the van open. I sat a moment looked at the Earth which was the one splotch of color in the gray and black lunar landscape. Then I studied the ground and tossed myself from the van with what I had aimed to be the proverbial “one small step.” I banged the back of my helmet on the van roof, fell out the door, bounced off the dust, somersaulted, and landed on shaky legs. Lucky for me, there were no sharp rocks about and the lunar gravity is not too great. Nikki hadn’t seen my acrobatics so I tried to act like nothing had happened.

“Everything OK?” Jake asked.

“Sure,” I said, hoping my panic didn’t show in my voice. I wasn’t in such a great hurry after my impromptu tumbling routine.

Needless to say, the weak lunar gravity takes some getting used to. It’s kind of like walking in chest deep water without the resistance of the water to hold you back. A gentle jump can bounce you four or five feet into the—airless—'air.” By the time we’d gone the short distance across the plain separating us from the base’s entrance, both Nikki and I had pretty well mastered the kangaroo hop that can get you around so quickly on the Moon. Jake’s suit had the legs tied together and he functioned like he’d been born on the Moon; his hopping motions were both graceful and functional.

I half expected the base to be locked up. But of course it wasn’t. There aren’t many unaccounted-for persons walking about on the Moon; burglary is not a problem. The main question was whether or not the air locks on the door would be operational.

Jake rotated the heavy ring on the door and it popped open. It led into an white plastic airlock barely big enough for eight or nine people at the most. We entered the small room and I closed and twisted the lever of the door behind us; sunlight came through the translucent plastic walls so that we could see. Nikki pushed the “Cycle” button. Nothing happened. The lock wasn’t functional.

“Power’s down,” Jake said. “The air locks all have an emergency switch in them so that it’s impossible to accidentally get locked out.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Probably a panel. Small metal plate door. Something like that.”

We searched about inside the white plastic lock. Finally, I spotted the thin lines of a panel cover. For some reason it was designed to blend into the rest of the wall; it made everything look nicer but was a very poor practice for such a critical emergency device. “Is this it?”

“Must be,” Jake replied. “Can you get it open?”

Obtaining purchase on a small, hairline opening is impossible in a space suit. “Remind me to grow fingernails on my gloves next time we come to the Moon.”

“Here.” Jake handed me a small-bladed screwdriver from the tool kit that he’d mounted on his suit.

I put the blade into the crack and jimmied the plastic apart. It suddenly popped off and the plate went cart- wheeling through the space in the chamber, silently bounced off a wall, and slowly fell to the floor. Getting used to the low gravity and airlessness is going to take some time, I decided as I handed the tool back to Jake.

There was one red button under the panel.

“Hey, they don’t have auto-destruct buttons on these bases, do they?” I asked.

Nikki laughed, ” I know a good way to see if that’s it.”

“Cross your fingers,” I pressed it hoping we were only kidding. I pressed the button. An electric overhead light came on in the chamber to augment the small amount of light coming through the plastic walls. But nothing else happened. There was no build-up of pressure inside the airlock. “Now what?” I asked.

“Try the cycle button again,” Jake said.

Nikki pressed the button and in a moment a low hiss started that gradually grew louder. Our suits quit acting