As soon as the boat had straightened out on a steady course and there was nothing to look at except the empty plain, the passengers began to read the literature thoughtfully provided for them. Each had been given a folder of photographs, maps, souvenirs (“This is to certify that Mr./Mrs./Miss — has sailed the Seas of the Moon, aboard Dust-Cruiser _Selene_”), and informative text. They had only to read this to discover all that they wanted to know about the Sea of Thirst, and perhaps a little more.
Most of the Moon, they read, was covered by a thin layer of dust, usually no more than a few millimeters deep. Some of this was debris from the stars–the remains of meteorites that had fallen upon the Moon’s unprotected face for at least five billion years. Some had flaked from the lunar rocks as they expanded and contracted in the fierce temperature extremes between day and night. Whatever its source, it was so finely divided that it would flow like a liquid, even under this feeble gravity.
Over the ages, it had drifted down from the mountains into the lowlands, to form pools and lakes. The first explorers had expected this, and had usually been prepared for it. But the Sea of Thirst was a surprise; no one had anticipated finding a dustbowl more than a hundred kilometers across.
As the lunar “seas” went, it was very small; indeed, the astronomers had never officially recognized its title, pointing out that it was only a small portion of the Sinus Roris–the Bay of Dew. And how, they protested, could part of a bay be an entire sea? But the name, invented by a copywriter of the Lunar Tourist Commission, had stuck despite their objections. It was at least as appropriate as the names of the other so-called seas–Sea of Clouds, Sea of Rains, Sea of Tranquillity. Not to mention Sea of Nectar.
The brochure also contained some reassuring information, designed to quell the fears of the most nervous traveler, and to prove that the Tourist Commission had thought of everything. “All possible precautions have been taken for your safety,” it stated. “_Selene_ carries an oxygen reserve sufficient to last for more than a week, and all essential equipment is duplicated. An automatic radio beacon signals your position at regular intervals, and in the extremely improbable event of a complete power failure, a dust-ski from Port Roris would tow you home with little delay. Above all, there is no need to worry about rough weather. No matter how bad a sailor you may be, you can’t get seasick on the Moon. There are never any storms on the Sea of Thirst; it is always a flat calm.”
Those last comforting words had been written in all good faith, for who could have imagined that they would soon be proved untrue?
As _Selene_ raced silently through the earthlit night, the Moon went about its business. There was a great deal of business now, after the aeons of sleep. More had happened here in the last fifty years than in the five billion before that, and much more was to happen soon.
In the first city that Man had ever built outside his native world, Chief Administrator Olsen was taking a stroll through the park. He was very proud of the park, as were all the twentyfive thousand inhabitants of Port Clavius. It was small, of course–though not as small as was implied by that miserable TV commentator who’d called it “a windowbox with delusions of grandeur.” And certainly there were no parks, gardens, or anything else on Earth where you could find sunflowers ten meters high.
Far overhead, wispy cirrus clouds were sailing by-or so it seemed. They were, of course, only images projected on the inside of the dome, but the illusion was so perfect that it sometimes made the C.A. homesick. Homesick? He corrected himself; _this_ was home.
Yet in his heart of hearts, he knew it was not true. To his children it would be, but not to him. He had been born in Stockholm, Earth; they had been born in Port Clavius. They were citizens of the Moon; he was tied to Earth with bonds that might weaken with the years, but would never break.
Less than a kilometer away, just outside the main dome, the head of the Lunar Tourist Commission inspected the latest returns, and permitted himself a mild feeling of satisfaction. The improvement over the last season had been maintained; not that there _were_ seasons on the Moon, but it was noticeable that more tourists came when it was winter in Earth’s northern hemisphere.
How could he keep it up? That was always the problem, for tourists wanted variety, and you couldn’t give them the same thing over and over again. The novel scenery, the low gravity, the view of Earth, the mysteries of Farside, the spectacular heavens, the pioneer settlements (where tourists were not always welcomed, anyway)–after you’d listed those, what else did the Moon have to offer? What a pity there were no native Selenites with quaint customs and quainter physiques at which visitors could click their cameras. Alas, the largest life form ever discovered on the Moon needed a microscope to show it–and its ancestors had come here on Lunik H, only a decade ahead of Man himself.
Commissioner Davis riffled mentally through the items that had arrived by the last telefax, wondering if there was anything there that would help him. There was, of course, the usual request from a TV company he’d never heard of, anxious to make yet another documentary on the Moon–if all expenses were paid. The answer to that one would be “No”; if he accepted all these kind offers, his department-would soon be broke.
Then there was a chatty letter from his opposite number in the Greater New Orleans Tourist Commission, Inc., suggesting an exchange of personnel. It was hard to see how that would help the Moon, or New Orleans either, but it would cost nothing and might produce some good will. And–this was more interesting–there was a request from the water-skiing champion of Australia, asking if anyone had ever tried to ski on the Sea of Thirst.
Yes–there was definitely an idea here; he was surprised that someone had not tried it already. Perhaps they had, behind _Selene_ or one of the small dust-skis. It was certainly worth a test; he was always on the lookout for new forms of lunar recreation, and the Sea of Thirst was one of his pet projects.
It was a project that, within a very few hours, was going to turn into a nightmare.
Chapter 2
Ahead of _Selene_, the horizon was no longer a perfect, unbroken arc; a jagged line of mountains had risen above the edge of the Moon. As the cruiser raced toward them, they seemed to climb slowly up the sky, as if lifted upon some gigantic elevator.
“The Mountains of Inaccessibility,” announced Miss Wilkins. “So called because they’re entirely surrounded by the Sea. You’ll notice, too, that they’re much steeper than most lunar mountains.”
She did not labor this, since it was an unfortunate fact that the majority of lunar peaks were a severe disappointment. The huge craters which looked so impressive on photographs taken from Earth turned out upon close inspection to be gently rolling hills, their relief grossly exaggerated by the shadows they cast at dawn and sunset. There was not a single lunar crater whose ramparts soared as abruptly as the streets of San Francisco, and there were very few that could provide a serious ohstacle to a determined cyclist. No one would have guessed this, however, from the publications of the Tourist Commission, which featured only the most spectacular cliffs and canyons, photographed from carefully chosen vantage points.
“They’ve never been thoroughly explored, even now,” Miss Wilkins continued. “Last year we took a party of geologists there, and landed them on that promontory, but they were only able to go a few kilometers into the interior. So there may be _anything_ up in those hills; we simply don’t know.”
Good for Sue, Pat told himself; she was a first-rate guide, and knew what to leave to the imagination and what to explain in detail. She had an easy relaxed tone, with no trace of that fatal singsong that was the occupational disease of so many professional guides. And she had mastered her subject thoroughly; it was very rare for her to be asked a question that she could not answer. Altogether, she was a formidable young lady, and though she often figured in Pat’s erotic reveries, he was secretly a little afraid of her.
The passengers stared with fascinated wonder at the approaching peaks. On the still-mysterious Moon, here was a deeper mystery. Rising like an island out of the strange sea that guarded them, the Mountains of Inaccessibility remained a challenge for the next generation of explorers. Despite their name, it was now easy enough to reach them–but with millions of square kilometers of less difficult territory still unexamined, they would have to wait their turn.