“We’re ready!” it shouted. “Crowd at the end of the bus and cover your faces. I’ll count down from ten.
“TEN.”
We’re already at the end of the bus, thought Pat. We don’t need all that time. We may not even have it.
“NINE.”
I’ll bet it doesn’t work, anyway. The Sea won’t let it, if It thinks we have a chance of getting out.
“EIGHT.”
A pity, though, after all this effort. A lot of people have half killed themselves trying to help us. They deserved better luck.
“SEVEN.”
That’s supposed to be a lucky number, isn’t it? Perhaps we may make it, after all. Some of us.
“SIX.”
Let’s pretend. It won’t do much harm now. Suppose it takes–oh, fifteen seconds to get through–
“FIVE.”
And, of course, to let down the ladder again; they probably rolled that up for safety–
“FOUR.”
And assuming that someone goes out every three seconds– no, let’s make it five to be on the safe side–
“THREE.”
That will be twenty-two times five, which is one thousand and–no, that’s ridiculous; I’ve forgotten how to do simple arithmetic–
“TWO.”
Say one hundred and something seconds, which must be the best part of two minutes, and that’s still plenty of time for those lox tanks to blow us all to kingdom come–
“ONE.”
ONE! And I haven’t even covered my face; maybe I should lie down even if I have to swallow this filthy stinking dust–
There was a sudden, sharp _crack_ and a brief puff of air; that was all. It was disappointingly anticlimactic, but the explosives experts had known their job, as is highly desirable that explosives experts should. The energy of the charge had been precisely calculated and focused; there was barely enough left over to ripple the dust that now covered almost half the floor space of the cabin.
Time seemed to be frozen; for an age, nothing happened. Then there was a slow and beautiful miracle, breath-taking because it was so unexpected, yet so obvious if one had stopped to think about it.
A ring of brilliant white light appeared among the crimson shadows of the ceiling. It grew steadily thicker and brighter– then, quite suddenly, expanded into a complete and perfect circle as the section of the roof fell away. The light pouring down was only that of a single glow tube twenty meters above, but to eyes that had seen nothing but dim redness for hours, it was more glorious than any sunrise.
The ladder came through almost as soon as the circle of roofing hit the floor. Miss Morley, poised like a sprinter, was gone in a flash. When Mrs. Schuster followed–a little more slowly, but still at a speed of which no one could complain–it was like an eclipse. Only a few stray beams of light now filtered down that radiant road to safety. It was dark again, as if, after that brief glimpse of dawn, the night had returned with redoubled gloom.
Now the men were starting to go–Baldur first, probably blessing his position in the alphabet. There were only a dozen left in the cabin when the barricaded door finally ripped from its hinges, and the pent-up avalanche burst forth.
The first wave of dust caught Pat while he was halfway up the slope of the cabin. Light and impalpable though it was, it slowed his movements until it seemed that he was struggling to wade through glue. It was fortunate that the moist and heavy air had robbed it of some of its power, for otherwise it would have filled the cabin with choking clouds. Pat sneezed and coughed and was partly blinded, but he could still breathe.
In the foggy gloom he could hear Sue counting–“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen–” as she marshaled the passengers to safety. He had intended her to go with the other women, but she was still down here, shepherding her charges. Even as he struggled against the cloying quicksand that had now risen almost to his waist, he felt for Sue a love so great that it seemed to burst his heart. Now he had no possible doubt. Real love was a perfect balance of desire and tenderness. The first had been there for a long time, and now the second had come in full measure.
“Twenty–that’s _you_, Commodore–quickly!”
“Like hell it is, Sue,” said the Commodore. “Up you go.”
Pat could not see what happened–he was still partly blinded by the dust and the darkness–but he guessed that Hansteen must have literally thrown Sue through the roof. Neither his age nor his years in space had yet robbed him of his Earthborn strength.
“Are you there, Pat?” he called. “I’m on the ladder.”
“Don’t wait for me–I’m coming.”
That was easier said than done. It felt as if a million soft yet determined fingers were clutching at him, pulling him back into the rising flood. He gripped one of the seat-backs–now almost hidden beneath the dust–and pulled himself toward the beckoning light.
Something whipped against his face; instinctively, he reached out to push it aside, then realized that it was the end of the rope ladder. He hauled upon it with all his might, and slowly, reluctantly, the Sea of Thirst relaxed its grip upon him.
Before he entered the shaft, he had one last glimpse of the cabin. The whole of the rear was now submerged by that crawling tide of gray; it seemed unnatural, and doubly sinister, that it rose in such a geometrically perfect plane, without a single ripple to furrow its surface. A meter away–this was something Pat knew he would remember all his life, though he could not imagine why–a solitary paper cup was floating sedately on the rising tide, like a toy boat upon a peaceful lake. In a few minutes it would reach the ceiling and be overwhelmed, but for the moment it was still bravely defying the dust.
And so were the emergency lights; they would continue to burn for days, even when each one was encapsulated in utter darkness.
Now the dim-lit shaft was around him. He was climbing as quickly as his muscles would permit, but he could not overtake the Commodore. There was a sudden flood of light from above as Hansteen cleared the mouth of the shaft, and involuntarily Pat looked downward to protect his eyes from the glare. The dust was already rising swiftly behind him, still unrippled, still smooth and placid–and inexorable.
Then he was straddling the low mouth of the caisson, in the center of a fantastically overcrowded igloo. All around him, in various stages of exhaustion and dishevelment, were his fellow passengers; helping them were four space-suited figures and one man without a suit, whom he assumed was Chief Engineer Lawrence. How strange it was to see a new face, after all these days.
“Is everyone out?” Lawrence asked anxiously.
“Yes,” said Pat. “I’m the last man.” Then he added, “I hope,” for he realized that in the darkness and confusion someone might have been left behind. Suppose Radley had decided not to face the music back in New Zealand –
No–he was here with the rest of them. Pat was just starting to do a count of heads when the plastic floor gave a sudden jump–and out of the open well shot a perfect smoke ring of dust. It hit the ceiling, rebounded, and disintegrated before anyone could move.
“What the devil was _that?_” said Lawrence.
“Our lox tank,” answered Pat. “Good old bus–she lasted just long enough.”
And then, to his helpless horror, the skipper of _Selene_ burst into tears.
Chapter 31
“I still don’t think those flags are a good idea,” said Pat as the cruiser pulled away from Port Roris. “They look so phony, when you know they’re in vacuum.”
Yet he had to admit that the illusion was excellent, for the lines of pennants draped around the Embarkation Building were stirring and fluttering in a nonexistent breeze. It was all done by springs and electric motors, and would be very confusing to the viewers back on Earth.
This was a big day for Port Rons, and indeed for the whole Moon. He wished that Sue could be here, but she was hardly in proper shape for the trip. Very literally; as she had remarked when he kissed her good-by that morning: “I don’t see how women could ever have had babies on Earth. Fancy carrying all this weight around, in six times our gravity.”
Pat turned his mind away from his impending family, and pushed _Selene II_ up to full speed. From the cabin behind him came the “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” of the thirty-two passengers, as the gray parabolas of dust soared against the sun like monochrome rainbows. This maiden voyage was in daylight; the travelers would miss the Sea’s magical phosphorescence, the night ride up the canyon to Crater Lake, the green glories of the motionless Earth. But the novelty and excitement of the journey were the main attractions. Thanks to her ill-fated predecessor, _Selene II_ was one of the best-known vehicles in the solar system.