Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 20 – And His Megascope Space Prober

dials showing the Challenger’s distance and angle from the moon and other heavenly bodies. At the precise midpoint between earth and moon, Slim signaled Tom, who eased a lever forward to decelerate.

Dead ahead, in their view pane, they saw the

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moon growing larger and larger. Soon they could make out its craters and jagged peaks with startling clearness. About fifty miles short of a landing, Tom beamed the repelatrons for a hovering halt and gazed at the lunar landscape.

“Right on the button,” Slim said with a glance at his watch.

Three of the crewmen from the power deck and radiation-monitoring room came into the flight compartment to join their mates.

“You mean we’re here already?” one of them asked jokingly.

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“Boy, what a sweet flight!” another added.

Tom busied himself warming up and tuning the Private Ear radio he had brought along. After giving his call letters, he said, “Challenger calling Fearing.

Can you read me?”

After several seconds came a faint response, too blurred with static to be understood.

“We’ll have to do better than that,” Tom muttered. He adjusted the output and worked with the fine-tuning control, then repeated his call.

Two or three seconds went by as the signals traversed the void between earth and moon.

“We read you loud and clear, Tom. How was the trip?” It was Billing’s voice from the rocket base.

“Couldn’t have been better, George. From now on, the constant one-G

system will be standard routine for the Challenger.”

Tom continued to converse with the base. Suddenly the signal was interrupted as the set developed a shrill whistling noise. Tom hastily adjusted the tuning controls but was unable to reestablish contact. The whistling seemed to be growing louder.